m 
ill''  ■'. 

in.; 

THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

RIVERSIDE 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 


RECENT  BOOKS  BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 

Psychology  and  Life,  Boston,  1899 

Grundziige  der  Psychologic,  Leipzig,  igcxD 

American  Traits,  Boston,  1902 

Die  Amerikaner,  Berlin,  1904 

Principles  of  Art  Education,  New  York,  1905 

The  Eternal  Life,  Boston,  1905 

Science  and  Idealism,  Boston,  1906 

Philosophic  der  Werte,  Leipzig,  1907 

On  the  Witness  Stand,  New  York,  1908 

Aus  Deutsch-Amerika,  Berlin,   1908 

The  Eternal  Values,  Boston,  1909 

Psychotherapy,  New  York,  1909 

Psychology  and  the  Teacher,  New  York,  1909 


AMERICAN   PROBLEMS 

FROM  THE  POINT  OF  VIEW 
OF  A  PSYCHOLOGIST 

BY 


HUGO  MUNSTERBERG 


NEW   YORK 

MOFFAT,  YARD  AND  COMPANY 
1912 


HNLi 


Copyright,  1910,  by 

MOFFAT,  YARD  AND  COMPANY 

Nkw  Yobk 


AU  RighU  Seserved 
PubliBbed,  April,  1910 


TO 

FRIEDRICH  SCHMIDT 

A  MASTER-BUILDER 

OF 

GERMAN-AMERICAN  FRIENDSHIP 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/americanproblemsOOmunsiala 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

PAGE 

I. 

THE  FEAR  OF  INERVES 

1 

II. 

THE  CHOICE  OF  A  VOCATION  . 

.      .     25 

in. 

THE  STANDING  OF  SCHOLARSHIP       . 

.     47 

IV. 

PROHIBITION  AND  TEMPERANCE 

.     67 

V. 

THE   INTEMPERANCE    OF    WOMEN    . 

.      .   103 

VI. 

MY  FRIENDS,  THE  SPIRITUALISTS      . 

.   117 

VII. 

THE  MARKET  AND  PSYCHOLOGY 

.      .   151 

VIII. 

BOOKS  AND  BOOKSTORES   .... 

.      .   177 

IX. 

THE    WORLD    LANGUAGE 

.   195 

PREFACE 

American  problems  have  tempted  me  to  enter  into 
public  discussion  ever  since  I  became  a  guest  in  this 
hospitable  land.  But  naturally  the  point  of  view  has 
shifted  somewhat.  The  first  instinctive  impulse  was  to 
compare  the  new  impressions  with  those  to  which  I  was 
accustomed,  and  thus  to  measure  American  institutions  by 
German  standards.  It  was  the  newcomer's  point  of  view 
from  which  I  wrote  my  "  American  Traits."  But  while 
the  aim  of  that  book  was  to  bring  German  ideals  nearer 
to  the  American  public,  my  deepest  interest  in  American 
problems  soon  led  to  the  opposite  effort.  I  tried  to  show 
American  work  and  American  ideals  to  the  Germans. 
This  time  my  purpose  was  to  give  a  systematic  view  of 
the  American  people.  The  book  was  written  In  German 
and  later  was  translated  into  English  under  the  title 
"The  Americans." 

But  in  the  meantime  I  have  become  one  of  them. 
While  I  have  remained  a  German  citizen,  I  naturally 
have  accepted  the  American  point  of  view  more  and  more. 
Impressions  which  at  first  struck  me  as  strange  slowly 
have  become  a  matter  of  course.  My  interest  in  Ameri- 
can problems  has  not  decreased  on  this  account,  but  the 
angle  from  which  I  sec  them  has  become  a  new  one.  It 
is  no  longer  the  national  difference  but  more  my  profes- 


AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

sional  lifework  which  has  influenced  my  attitude  toward 
the  public  questions.  Not  as  a  German  but  as  a  psy- 
chologist I  have  begun  to  take  sides  as  to  problems  which 
stir  the  nation. 

In  this  spirit  the  following  essays  are  written.  Of 
course  this  psychological  interest  determines  somewhat  the 
selection  of  the  subjects  which  I  discuss.  Problems  like 
those  of  scholarship  and  education,  of  temperance  and 
customs,  of  superstition  and  nervousness,  stand  nearer  to 
the  psychologist  than  those  of  trusts  and  tax  legislation. 
Some  may  even  think  that  this  tends  to  exclude  the  real 
problems  before  the  American  mind  and  to  give  atten- 
tion only  to  the  by-problems.  And  yet  in  certain  respects 
may  not  the  less  important  problems  be  the  most  im- 
portant ones? 

All  these  essays  have  appeared  in  magazines,  in  The 
Atlantic  Monthly,  in  McClure's  Magazine,  in  the  Metro- 
politan Magazine  and  so  on,  and  I  am  obliged  to  them 
for  the  right  to  a  new  appearance.  Practically  every 
one  of  these  papers  has  been  discussed  with  unusual  energy 
throughout  the  newspapers  of  the  country.  May  a  part 
of  this  generous  interest  be  maintained  for  this  little 
book.  I  have  revised  the  papers  to  a  slight  degree  but 
only  in  the  case  of  the  essay  on  prohibition  have  I  hoped 
to  secure  a  better  understanding  by  adding  a  lengthy 
epilogue. 

Hugo  Munsterberg. 

Harvard  University. 
March  19  lo. 


I 

THE  FEAR  OF  NERVES 


THE    FEAR   OF   NERVES 

"DEFORE  and  since  MoHere's  immortal  comedy,  he 
who  fancies  himself  to  be  the  victim  of  a  disease  and 
suffers  from  imaginary  symptoms  has  always  been  the 
target  of  merry  jests.  But  in  modern  times  we  see  the 
more  serious  aspect  of  the  case.  On  the  one  side,  we 
know  that  to  imagine  symptoms  of  disease  can  be  itself 
the  expression  of  an  abnormal  state.  And,  above  all,  on 
the  other  side,  to  think  oneself  into  the  role  of  the  patient 
can  be  the  starting-point  for  serious  disturbances.  By  a 
kind  of  auto-suggestion,  the  healthy  man  becomes  really 
ill  if  he  fixates  his  mind  on  the  symptoms  which  he  be- 
lieves he  feels.  This  curious  and  by  no  means  harmless 
state  may  befall  not  only  individuals,  but  whole  nations, 
whole  generations.  Society  to-day,  and  especially  the  so- 
cial body  of  America,  imagines  itself  to  be  the  pitiable 
victim  of  a  miserable  disease :  general  nervousness. 

Indeed,  It  is  a  dogma  of  our  generation,  not  that  this 
or  that  man  suffers  from  neurasthenia  or  other  nervous 
diseases,  but  that  our  whole  nervous  make-up  has  become 
worse ;  that  nervous  troubles  are  on  the  increase ;  that  our 
entire  social  life  has  become  neurasthenic,  and  that  we 

I 


2  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

must  do  our  utmost  to  protect  our  nerve  energies  against 
the  tiredness  and  exhaustion  which  have  become  the  habit- 
ual fate.  Our  time  knows  the  symptoms,  knows  the  con- 
ditions, knows  the  remedies  of  this  national  disease,  and 
all  fits  together  so  nicely  that  the  theory  seems  secure. 
No  one  has  a  right  to  doubt  the  facts  any  longer.  All 
that  remains  is  to  take  care  that  we  get  a  strong  dose  of 
the  remedies.  All  parties  concerned  seem  so  perfectly 
satisfied  with  this  vista  of  social  psychology  that  it  might 
seem  easiest  not  to  scrutinize  the  case,  and  not  to  play  the 
physician  who  unkindly  insists  that  he  wants  not  only  to 
hear  the  complaints  of  the  patient,  but  also  to  feel  his 
pulse  and  measure  his  temperature  and  examine  his  lungs 
and  heart.  Yet  here,  too,  the  case  may  be  one  in  which 
the  imagined  disease  will  easily  become  the  source  of  real 
organic  trouble.  If  our  time  goes  on  thinking  itself  ab- 
normally nervous,  it  may  indeed  finally  become  ill;  and 
there  are  not  a  few  indications  that  care  is  necessary. 
Thus,  a  little  scrutiny  may  be  useful  after  all. 

The  symptoms  of  the  imagined  disease  are  told  us  ev- 
erywhere. Most  easily  visible  is  the  general  hurry  and 
restlessness.  Whether  we  see  the  individual  rush  to  his 
business  or  devour  his  lunch,  see  the  overflow  of  useless 
movements  from  the  chewing  of  gum  to  the  ceaseless  mo- 
tion of  the  rocking  chair,  or  watch  the  hustling  and  push- 
ing of  the  public  life,  the  hasty  passing  from  one  Interest 
to  another,  everything  suggests  a  nervous  condition  of  so- 
ciety.    There  is  a  social  unrest  which  indicates  an  inner 


THE  FEAR  OF  NERVES  3 

nervous  irritation.  But  nervousness  shows  itself  not  only 
in  jerky,  twitchy  movements  but,  at  the  same  time,  in  a 
quick  exhaustion  of  the  nervous  energy.  We  need  vaca- 
tions and  excursions,  the  rest  of  country  life  and  frequent 
changes  more  than  any  previous  generation.  Our  nerve- 
energy  is  so  run  down  that  we  can  get  refreshment  only 
by  tickling  amusements.  After  the  day's  work,  who  still 
has  the  mental  force  to  see  a  tragedy  on  the  stage  ?  The 
nerves  of  our  time  demand  musical  comedies.  Who  still 
has  the  inner  concentration  to  read  books?  In  the  last 
twenty-five  years  the  number  of  our  book-stores  has  melted 
down  to  less  than  a  third,  in  spite  of  the  increase  of  the 
population.  We  are  too  nervous  to  read  books.  Our 
nerves  can  stand  only  the  light  short-cut  magazine  articles. 
This  story  of  nervous  restlessness  and  nervous  fatigue 
comes  to  its  greatest  expression  in  the  rapid  increase  of 
nervous  diseases.  Two-thirds  of  our  acquaintances  have 
neurasthenia,  and  nervous  prostration  is  the  fashion  for 
men  and  women  alike.  Psychasthenic  and  hysteric  symp- 
toms abound,  and  the  waiting-rooms  of  the  nerve  special- 
ists are  crowded. 

But  there  is  no  need  to  point  to  the  symptoms,  as  they 
can  easily  be  foreseen  as  the  necessary  and  natural  conse- 
quences of  the  nerve-racking  conditions  under  which  we  are 
bound  to  live.  How  often  have  we  heard  that  our  age  is 
that  of  electricity.  Every  new  invention  and  every  dis- 
covery has  hastened  the  whole  rhythm  of  our  life.  The 
adagio  of  our  forefathers  has  become  a  prestissimo  which 


4  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

must  keep  us  breathless.  And  with  the  haste  has  come 
the  noise.  The  metropolitan  who  has  to  think  while  the 
telephone  rings  and  the  elevated  roars  and  the  typewriter 
hammers  must  be  a  wreck  before  he  is  through  with  his 
work.  Yet,  endlessly  worse  is  the  inner  tension  of  the  life, 
the  multiplicity  of  our  engagements,  the  pressure  of  the 
responsibilities,  and  above  all  the  sharpness  of  the  compe- 
tition. It  may  be  that  the  newspapers  are  especially  re- 
sponsible. They  have  enlarged  our  sphere,  so  that  every 
day  heaps  upon  us  a  thousand  exciting  reports  from  all 
over  the  globe.  There  is  no  calling  and  no  profession 
which  does  not  feel  the  new,  unsafe  tension.  Truly,  it  is 
not  only  the  broker  at  the  stock  exchange  whose  emotions 
become  over-strained.  The  conditions  of  the  market-place 
have  become  such  that  everybody  is  over-burdened  and  has 
much  more  to  do  than  his  grandfather  ever  thought  of  do- 
ing. Wc  are  forced  to  automobile  through  life,  and  the 
fugitive  impressions  of  the  world  through  which  we  arc 
racing  must  bewilder  us  and  make  us  dizzy.  There  is 
no  longer  any  repose  or  any  relief.  Our  poor  nerves  are 
maltreated  from  morning  to  night,  from  childhood  to  old 
age.  The  nervousness  of  our  time  comes  with  the  neces- 
sity of  a  natural  effect. 

The  only  thing  to  be  hoped  for  is  at  least  to  find  some 
good  remedies,  and  if  we  cannot  effect  a  cure,  as  the  case 
seems  desperate,  we  may  bring  some  passing  alleviation. 
The  most  immediate  help  is,  of  course,  the  medical.  The 
public  does  not  wait  for  the  physician,  but  supplies  Itself 
with  all  the  nervlna  from  asplrine  to  the  glycerophos- 


THE  FEAR  OF  NERVES  5 

phates.  But  the  official  drugs  cannot  suffice  for  the  grow- 
ing demand  for  nerve  cures.  Mental  healing  and  faith 
cures  of  all  types,  Christian  Science  and  church  clinics  have 
been  superadded.  Every  day  creates  new  schemes  for 
smoothing  the  irritated  and  the  exhausted  nervous  system. 
Moreover,  we  try  to  eliminate  at  least  the  unnecessary 
scratching  of  our  poor  nerves.  The  wave  of  abstinence 
legislation  has  swept  over  the  country.  Alcohol  surely  is 
poison  for  weak  nerves,  but  coffee  is  no  better,  and  tobacco 
ruins  them  in  another  way.  The  crusade  against  artificial 
stimuli  Is  controlled  by  an  instinctive  desire  to  save  our 
wrecked  nervous  substance.  The  movement  from  the  city 
to  the  country,  to  the  seashore  and  mountains,  aims  to- 
wards the  same  goal.  We  instinctively  feel  that  fresh  air 
and  sunshine  may  bring  back  to  us  what  we  have  lost 
among  skyscrapers  and  smoky  chimneys.  And  best  of  all, 
at  last  the  whole  nation  has  learned  the  blessing  of  physical 
exercise.  However  our  daily  life  may  cripple  our  nerves 
and  our  whole  organism,  everyone  nowadays  understands 
that  at  least  half  an  hour  a  day  must  be  devoted  to  physical 
exercise  in  order  to  restore  the  machinery.  Whether  wc 
swing  the  dumb-bells  or  the  golf  stick,  whether  we  bicycle 
or  play  ball  or  run,  the  nerve  cure  of  regular  bodily  ac- 
tivity has  at  last  been  accepted  by  young  and  old,  by  rich 
and  poor,  by  men  and  women,  by  the  higher  and  the  lower 
classes.  If  we  had  not  this  everpresent  remedy,  the  nerv- 
ousness of  the  time  would  be  intolerable. 

This  story  of  the  symptoms,  the  causes,  and  the  remedies 
has  become  the  stock  equipment  of  our  social  neurology, 


6  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

and  he  who  dares  to  doubt  knows  that  he  finds  no  neutral 
hearers.  Nevertheless,  I  do  not  hesitate  to  claim  that  this 
story  is  imaginative  from  beginning  to  end.  And  if  the 
prejudices  are  allowed  to  spread  as  in  recent  years,  the 
belief  in  this  self-made  disease  may  indeed  become  a  serious 
handicap.  It  is  an  illusion  that  our  time  is  more  nervous 
than  earlier  periods ;  it  is  an  illusion  that  the  material  and 
social  conditions  under  which  we  live  are  favorable  to 
nervous  diseases;  it  is  an  illusion  that  the  highly-praised 
remedies  would  really  serve  their  purpose  if  the  disease  ex- 
isted. 

To  begin  with  the  end,  must  it  really  be  kept  a  secret 
that  the  dogma  of  the  physical  exercise  is  typical  of  this 
whole  fabric  of  imagination?  If  once  we  liberate  our- 
selves from  the  hygienic  cant  with  which  our  time  is  over- 
flooded  we  must  recognize  the  comic  aspect  of  the  situation. 
Millions  of  people  are  running  wildly  to  catch  a  ball,  lift- 
ing weights  in  fullest  perspiration,  trotting  with  gasping 
breath,  and  doing  a  hundred  other  useless  tricks  simply 
because  a  meaningless  fashion  has  cruelly  thrown  them  into 
such  a  habit.  Of  course  it  seems  as  if  the  opposite  may 
quickly  be  proved.  Ask  the  man  on  the  street  whether 
he  would  not  feel  miserably  if  he  gave  up  his  daily  exercise, 
and  he  will  tell  you  from  the  bottom  of  his  heart  that  he 
cannot  live  without  it.  He  is  right;  and  yet  he  is  no  more 
right  than  the  morphinist  who  feels  in  despair  and  suffers 
if  he  cannot  have  his  injection;  no  more  right  than  the 
habitual  drinker  who  would  not  find  sleep  at  night  if  he 
did  not  have  his  three  mugs  of  beer  after  supper,  or  the 


THE  FEAR  OF  NERVES  7 

other  type  who  would  have  no  appetite  if  he  had  no  cock- 
tail before  the  soup.  Certainly  our  whole  central  nerv- 
ous system  adjusts  Itself  rapidly  to  new  forms  of  stimu- 
lation, and  is  in  a  poor  state  if  the  habitual  excitement  is 
taken  away.  A  craving  sets  in  which  must  be  satisfied. 
We  do  not  know  much  about  the  mechanism,  but  the  facts 
cannot  be  doubted.  The  brain  of  the  smoker  really  has 
to  suffer  if  the  accustomed  daily  stimulus  is  omitted.  Is 
it  the  right  conclusion  that  for  this  reason  smoking  is 
necessary  for  the  welfare  of  the  human  organism? 

Regular  physical  exercise  of  the  artificial  kind  is  a  habit 
which,  just  like  the  moderate  use  of  light  alcoholic  bever- 
ages, has  certain  advantages,  but  which  must  also  be  held 
within  the  closest  limits,  unless  the  disadvantages  are  to 
be  greater.  Certainly  it  is  no  less  artificially  introduced 
into  our  social  life,  and  in  this  case,  too,  it  is  just  as  wise 
not  to  allow  it  to  become  a  habit.  To  wander  through  the 
country  on  a  fine  day  is  a  beautiful  inspiration,  and  health- 
ful for  everyone ;  to  need  the  walk  with  mechanical  regu- 
larity i^  the  product  of  a  bad  training,  and  to  become  the 
slave  of  Swedish  gymnastic  apparatus  is  no  better  than 
slavery  to  cigars.  Of  course,  for  certain  purposes,  it  is 
desirable  to  develop  the  muscular  forces  of  the  body ;  then 
the  physical  exercise  becomes  labor.  That  is  an  entirely 
different  thing.  For  certain  others,  especially  educational 
purposes,  it  is  most  desirable  to  have  sport  and  competi- 
tive athletics;  then  the  physical  effort  becomes  pleasure 
and  play.  But  as  mere  exercise  and  restoration,  it  is  need- 
less in  moderation  and  harmful  in  strong  doses,  and  the 


8  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

necessity  only  results  from  the  long  training  in  it.  For  a 
long  time  the  pedagogue  even  believed  that  muscular  ef- 
fort was  the  best  recreation  after  the  intellectual  work  of 
the  school  child.  Nowadays  we  know  that  the  opposite  is 
true.  Physical  exercise  demands  the  energies  of  the  same 
brain  which  learns  the  school  lesson  and  the  fatigued  brain 
becomes  still  more  strained  if  its  energies  are  tapped  for 
a  new  activity.  There  is  only  one  source  of  restitution  of 
used-up  brain  energy,  and  that  is  rest  and  sleep,  together 
with  fresh  air  and  good  nourishment.  If  the  craving  for 
physical  exercise  is  not  intentionally  injected  into  the  body 
by  habitual  indulgence  in  this  useless  stimulation,  the  nor- 
mal personality  can  do  just  as  good  work  and  remain  just 
as  well  without  such  strained  effort.  Moreover,  he  enjoys 
the  moderate,  occasional  use  of  exercise  far  more. 

No  less  doubtful  in  their  final  effectiveness  are  the  other 
popular  remedies  for  the  nerve  troubles  of  our  time.  It 
is  certainly  no  gain  that  headache  powders  and  the 
sleeping  drugs  belong  to  the  equipment  of  every  fashion- 
able woman,  and  that  they  are  sold  over  the  counter  of  the 
soda-fountain.  A  passing  discomfort  is  too  often  removed 
at  the  expense  of  really  healthy  nerves.  Still  worse  is  the 
psychotherapy  of  dilettanti.  It  seems  to  me  one  of  the 
best  indications  of  the  splendid  nervous  constitution  of  the 
nation  that  it  has  passed  with  so  little  serious  harm  through 
the  millionfold  attacks  on  its  nervous  system  which  the 
amateurish  psychotherapists  of  every  denomination  have 
directed  against  it.  Most  of  that  which  the  faith  healers 
and  mind  curists  and  Christian  Scientists  and  their  kin  arc 


THE  FEAR  OF  NERVES  9 

performing  is  very  well  meant  and  faithfully  carried  out, 
but  splendidly  arranged  to  create  at  least  mild  hysteria  in 
weak  nervous  systems.  Enviable  is  the  race  which  shows 
sufficient  nerve-strength  to  pass  through  it  without  real 
damage. 

Yet  the  illusions  arc  still  queerer  when  our  conditions 
of  life  are  blamed  as  necessary  causes  of  nervous  exhaus- 
tion. Is  not  the  nearest  aim  of  our  much-advertised 
technical  civilization  to  save  our  nerve-energy?  It  is 
true  that  the  electric  current  runs  rapidly  through  the 
wire,  but  do  we  not  let  it  run,  so  that  we  may  remain  quietly 
seated  instead  of  running  ourselves?  The  technical  mech- 
anism of  our  life  has  become  more  complex  just  for  the 
sake  of  making  our  life  itself  simpler.  The  telephone  at 
our  desk  and  the  elevator  in  our  hall  save  us  trouble. 
Where  can  we  find  more  rest  than  on  an  express  train? 
It  is  true  its  engine  runs  faster  than  that  of  the  slow  train, 
but  that  does  not  mean  that  we  feel  in  a  greater  hurry 
when  we  are  comfortably  seated  in  the  parlor  car  of  the 
Limited.  Our  poor  forefathers  had  to  go  through  much 
nerve-irritation,  but  our  life  is  smooth.  How  their  visual 
brain  centers  must  have  suffered  from  their  flickering  light 
and  from  the  astigmatism  of  lenses  in  the  eye !  We  have 
mild,  steady  light,  and  the  oculist  corrects  our  lenses.  Our 
triumphing  natural  science,  with  all  its  marvelous  inven- 
tions, with  its  progress  of  hygiene  and  pathology,  has  pri- 
marily removed  the  friction.  Instead  of  a  rough,  rocky 
road,  we  move  along  on  a  smooth,  asphalt  street,  over 
which  there  is  really  no  difficulty  in  proceeding. 


lo  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

Of  course  it  is  true  that  the  social  life  has  become  more 
manifold  and  the  outer  tension  has  become  stronger;  but 
it  is  entirely  misleading  to  believe  that  that  is  in  itself  a 
greater  strain  on  the  nervous  system.  The  scientific  psy- 
chologist brings  no  clearer  conviction  from  his  laboratory 
study  of  mental  life  than  that  of  the  relativity  of  mental 
states.  Our  attention,  our  feeling,  our  interest,  our  ex- 
citement never  depend  upon  the  mere  amount  of  the  stimu- 
lus. The  same  amount  may  make  a  strong  impression  at 
one  time,  at  another  a  faint  one,  again  under  other  condi- 
tions no  impression  at  all.  Everything  depends  upon  its 
relation  to  the  background.  If  three  voices  are  shouting, 
the  noise  becomes  noticeably  stronger  when  a  fourth  is 
added,  but  if  thirty  are  heard,  one  more  or  even  five  more 
will  not  be  heard:  ten  more  would  have  to  join  to  make 
a  perceptible  difference.  And  if  three  hundred  produce 
a  noise,  fifty  more  will  not  add  anything:  now  a  hun- 
dred must  be  brought  in  to  secure  the  slightest  growth 
in  intensity  of  the  sound.  The  shouting  of  the  hundred 
men  when  they  fall  in  with  three  hundred  makes  no  more 
impression  than  one  man  when  he  joins  only  three  others. 
This  law  prevails  universally.  The  conditions  for  a  feel- 
ing of  difference,  and  therefore  for  an  emotional  excite- 
ment, are  always  relative.  Two  street  boys  who  quarrel 
about  a  cent  are  no  less  enraged  than  two  captains  of  in- 
dustry who  quarrel  about  a  million.  It  is  absurd  to  meas^ 
ure  the  effect  of  our  surroundings  on  our  brain  by  the  mere 
mass  and  size  and  strength  of  the  attacking  stimulus.  The 
proportion  alone  is  decisive.     What  may  be  the  source  of 


THE  FEAR  OF  NERVES  ii 

strongest  emotion  in  the  colorless  village  life  may  be  a 
hardly  noticeable,  mild  variation  for  the  globe-trotter, 
which  leaves  scarcely  a  trace  in  his  mind. 

No  less  important  is  another  psychological  fact:  the 
mental  adaptation  which  slowly  levels  down  even  the 
strongest  impression.  The  miller  does  not  hear  the  noise 
of  the  mill.  No  one  of  us  feels  the  touch  of  his  clothes. 
In  the  same  way  we  have  become  insensitive  by  adaptation 
to  our  tumultuous  surroundings.  When  we  return  from 
the  mountain  woods,  we  hear  the  roaring  of  the  city  for  a 
day  or  two,  and  then  it  sinks  below  our  consciousness  and 
no  longer  harms  our  well-adapted  nerves.  ^ 

Moreover,  while  our  modern  life  has  become  more  man- 
ifold, its  emotional  strain  is  rather  less  severe  than  that  of 
the  past.  Our  life  is  less  sentimental  and  more  realistic 
and  businesslike.  No  longer  do  we  write  the  letters  full 
of  feeling  which  our  grandparents  wrote:  we  of  to-day 
dictate  notes.  We  do  not  keep  emotional  diaries :  instead, 
we  subscribe  to  the  clipping  bureau.  Above  all,  our  pub- 
lic life  and  our  welfare  is  less  threatened  by  dangers  and 
sudden  changes  —  the  chief  source  of  nervous  shocks. 
Not  only  the  meteorologist  of  the  weather  bureau  tells  us  a 
long  time  beforehand  when  the  thunder-storm  or  the  hail- 
storm is  to  come ;  our  social  life  and  our  politics  in  this  age 
of  the  cable  are  served  by  their  weather  bureaus,  too.  Ex- 
citement and  public  fear  have  been  tuned  down.  Our 
growing  tolerance  works  in  the  same  manner.  Conflicts 
are  less  embittered.  On  the  whole  we  enjoy  our  disagree- 
ments and  make  pleasant  after-dinner  speeches  out  of  them, 


12  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

and  applaud  the  good  stories  of  our  opponent.     This  is 
no  age  for  being  especially  nervous. 

Of  course  it  cannot  be  overlooked  that  such  inner 
changes  never  move  in  one  direction  only.  They  may  re- 
move certain  evils  and  open  the  sources  of  others.  A  sim- 
ple yes  or  no  does  not  answer  such  complex  questions. 
For  instance,  we  pointed  out  that  a  reason  for  the  nervous- 
ness of  earlier  generations  was  emotionalism  and  sentimen- 
tality, and  that  this  has  yielded  to  a  cooler  mutual  relation 
of  men.  In  the  light  of  modern  psychopathology  we  be- 
gin to  understand  that  this  may,  nevertheless,  be  a  condi- 
tion for  nervousness  of  a  very  different  kind.  Recent  years 
have  shown  that  many  of  the  hysteric  and  psychasthenic 
disturbances  are  simply  the  result  of  a  suppressed  memory 
of  disagreeable  experiences.  An  unpleasurable  event 
which  failed  to  find  its  natural  expression  becomes  in  a  way 
strangulated  in  the  mind  and  begins  to  work  mischief  there 
in  the  brain  centers,  even  without  conscious  knowledge  of 
the  person.  Now  it  is  evident  that  sentimentality  brings 
with  it  a  mutual  confidence  and  intimacy  in  which  everyone 
finds  many  more  opportunities  of  expressing  the  feelings 
of  his  mind,  and  thus  disburdening  his  inner  life  from 
such  mischievous  intrusions.  The  businesslike  soberness 
of  our  modern  times  has  taken  away  this  chance  for  confes- 
sion ;  and  many  a  nervous  system  may  be  wrecked,  where  a 
confessional  might  have  saved  it.  This  shows  how  the 
ideal  mental  state  cannot  be  prescribed  by  a  simple  psycho- 
logical formula,  but  at  least  so  much  ought  to  be  clear 
to  the  social  psychologist,  that  neither  our  nervous  system 


THE  FEAR  OF  NERVES  13 

nor  the  surroundings  of  our  life  should  be  blamed  for  our 
tiredness  and  restlessness. 

But  there  is  no  need  of  going  on  showing  tHe  Illusory 
Ideas  as  to  the  causes  of  our  general  nervousness.  We 
can  take  a  straighter  road  and  insist  that  this  nervousness 
itself  is  an  illusion.  Of  course,  nervous  diseases  are  plen- 
tiful; and  whatever  medical  science  can  do  to  relieve  them, 
and  whatever  hygiene  can  do  to  prevent  them,  must  be 
done  most  earnestly  and  insistently.  The  recent  develop- 
ment of  scientific  psychotherapy  promises  much  for  the  al- 
leviation of  this  human  burden.  But  the  more  ready  rec- 
ognition of  nervous  diseases  does  not  justify  the  claim  that 
nervousness  has  rapidly  increased,  and  that  it  is  the  sig- 
nature of  our  time.  And  what  is  more  important,  in  no 
way  does  it  justify  the  nervousness  over  nervousness  which 
has  been  spread  by  this  uncritical  acceptance  of  the  illusory 
claim.  It  is  arbitrary,  for  instance,  to  sec  in  the  rush  and 
hurry  a  sign  of  nervousness.  It  is  practically  a  sign  of 
lack  of  co-ordination,  a  certain  remainder  of  untrained  im- 
pulsiveness and  disconnectedness  of  movements  which,  on 
the  whole,  begins  to  disappear,  or  at  least  to  be  pushed 
westward.  The  jerky  movements,  the  chewing  and  rock- 
ing and  putting  the  feet  on  the  tabic  will  soon  be  overcome, 
just  as  the  spitting  has  nearly  disappeared  from  the  Eastern 
cities.  On  the  contrary,  the  Americans  strike  the  observ- 
ant foreigner  as  rather  too  patient.  They  are  ready  to 
tolerate  delays  and  to  wait  quietly  where  the  European 
would  have  become  irritated,  and  they  waste  time  wherever 
there  is  the  least  opportunity  as  only  a  very  rich  nation  can 


14  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

afford  to  do.  They  begin  their  youth  by  wasting  at  least 
two  years  in  school,  reaching  at  nineteen  a  point  which 
every  Intelligent  being  can  certainly  reach  —  by  seventeen. 
After  such  thorough  training  in  time-wasting,  they  per- 
sistently carry  on  the  method.  It  is  an  illusion  to  beheve 
that  they  change  it  and  become  time-saving  simply  because 
in  traveling  they  jump  up  from  their  seats  and  rush  to  the 
end  of  the  car  ten  minutes  before  their  train  reaches  the 
station. 

Of  course  the  reports  of  the  hospitals  and  of  the  doctors 
seem  to  speak  with  figures.  But  may  it  not  be  with  our 
psychasthenias  and  neurasthenias  as  it  was  when  appen- 
dicitis became  fashionable  ?  The  statistical  reports  of  a 
certain  European  army  showed  that  in  ten  years  the 
number  of  appendicitis  cases  became  four  times  larger, 
but  a  further  scrutiny  of  the  statistics  demonstrated  that 
exactly  in  the  same  percentage  in  which  this  favorite  dis- 
ease was  growing,  all  which  had  been  classed  as  gen- 
eral intestinal  troubles  happily  decreased.  In  short,  it 
was  evident  that  the  spreading  of  the  dreaded  ailment 
was  an  illusion.  It  had  only  found  a  new  name.  Now 
it  certainly  is  well  that  we  have  all  the  new  names  for 
the  nervous  disturbances  and  that  we  understand  their 
character  better  to-day,  but  indeed  a  danger  arises  if  this 
knowledge  is  turned  into  a  discouragement,  into  an  ex- 
aggerated attentlveness  to  states  which  an  earlier  period 
ignored  or  simply  handled  as  variations  of  temperament 
and  mood  and  imagination  and  will.  Yes,  the  history  of 
medicine  points  rather  clearly  to  the  opposite  fact  that 


THE  FEAR  OF  NERVES  15 

nervous  diseases  have  become  less  general,  compared  per- 
haps with  medieval  times.  At  least  our  time  is  spared 
the  nervous  epidemics  of  former  centuries. 

Least  of  all  ought  we  to  measure  the  good  or  poor 
states  of  our  national  nerves  by  the  complaints  of  tired- 
ness. It  is  true  there  are  persons  who  demand  from 
their  nerves  more  than  hygienic  life  would  allow  because 
they  are  too  little  provided  with  the  healthy  feeling  of 
fatigue  which  nature  has  arranged  as  a  warning  sign  for 
the  exhaustion  of  the  nervous  system.  But  incompar- 
ably larger  is  the  number  of  those  who  have  trained 
themselves  to  feel  fatigued  long  before  any  exhaustion  is 
threatening.  It  Is  a  weakness  of  will  and  attention 
which  causes  the  deceitful  impression  o(  nervous  exhaus- 
tion, which  Is  really  nothing  but  a  poor  habit.  Imita- 
tion plays  a  big  role  In  It ;  continuous  Indulgence  a  greater. 
The  longing  for  rest  and  for  interruption  of  regular 
work  can  become  just  as  much  a  craving  and  vicious  cus- 
tom as  the  longing  for  stimulants.  And  just  as  every 
new  artificial  stimulation  reenforces  the  desire,  every  new 
yielding  to  such  pseudo-tiredness  makes  work  more  and 
more  uncomfortable. 

Here  we  have  finally  reached  a  true  evil  which  cannot 
be  brushed  aside  as  an  illusion;  yes,  an  evil  which  Is  too 
often  responsible  for  that  national  fancy  of  general  nerv- 
ousness. That  from  which  the  people  really  suffer,  and 
perhaps  suffer  more  than  any  other  nation,  more  than  any 
other  time.  Is  the  weakness  of  attention.  To  be  sure  at- 
tention  is  a   function   of  the  brain,   and  therefore  uiti- 


i6  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

mately  is  an  act  of  our  nervous  system.  But  Its  weak- 
ness and  lack  of  development  is  not  a  nervous  disease; 
it  is  a  bad  habit  of  the  nerves,  but  not  nervousness.  It 
is  a  wrong  of  the  mind,  but  not  a  mental  disease.  And 
because  this  true  evil  is  spreading  in  a  most  dangerous 
way  it  is  important  to  recognize  it  and  to  warn  against 
any  misunderstanding,  as  if  the  symptoms  which  result 
from  it  were  symptoms  which  demand  the  physician. 
The  more  the  confusion  between  lack  of  attention  and 
nervous  weakness  is  favored,  the  greater  are  the  chances 
that  we  shall  coddle  the  nerves  more  and  more,  and  in 
that  way  create  nervous  diseases  without  curing  the  fun- 
damental wrong. 

The  foreigner  who  studies  the  American  character  will 
always  be  deeply  impressed  by  the  wonderful  striving  for 
self-assertion,  self-perfection,  and  self-realization,  which 
gives  meaning  and  significance  to  this  greatest  de- 
mocracy of  the  world.  But  there  is  one  trait  which  he 
instinctively  perceives,  in  spite  of  all  his  enthusiasm  in  the 
strength  and  glory  of  the  New  World.  He  cannot  help 
feeling  the  lack  of  accuracy  and  thoroughness,  the  super- 
ficiality, the  go-as-you-please  character  of  the  work;  and 
this  ultimately  always  means  the  lack  of  voluntary  atten- 
tion. The  small  respect  for  the  expert  in  every  field,  the 
condescending  smile  for  the  dry  theory,  belong  together 
with  the  carelessness  with  which  the  girls  spell  and  the 
I  boys  calculate.  Every  feature  of  our  social  life  shows 
I  an  unwillingness  to  concentrate  attention.  Only  that 
I     which  can  be  followed  without  effort  is  welcome.     The 


THE  FEAR  OF  NERVES  17 

serious  drama  is  deserted,  and  the  vaudeville  houses  are  ) 
crowded ;  the  serious  editorials  of  the  newspapers  disap-  / 
pear,  and  the  racy  style  wins  success ;  the  yellow-press  1 
tone  colors  larger  and  larger  parts  of  politics,  and  even  1 
of  court  and  church.  And  yet  what  else  is  the  meaning  I 
of  it  but  the  victory  of  involuntary  attention  and  the  de-J 
feat  of  voluntary  attention? 

Human  nature  is  indeed  so  arranged  that  the  attention 
at  first  follows  in  an  involuntary  way  all  that  is  shining, 
loud,  sensational  and  surprising.  The  real  development 
of  mankind  lies  in  the  growth  of  the  voluntary  attention, 
which  is  not  passively  attracted,  but  which  turns  actively 
to  that  which  is  important  and  significant  and  valuable  in 
itself.  No  one  is  born  with  such  a  power.  It  has  to  be 
trained  and  educated.  Yes,  perhaps  the  deepest  mean- 
ing of  education  is  to  secure  this  mental  energy  which 
emancipates  itself  from  haphazard  stimulations  of  the 
world  and  firmly  holds  that  which  conforms  to  our  pur- 
poses and  Ideals.  This  great  function  of  education  is  too 
much  neglected.  As  a  reaction  against  a  rigid,  empty, 
mechanical  instruction,  there  swept  over  the  country  a 
wave  of  electlvism  which  was  meant  to  bring  the  bless- 
ings of  freedom,  but  which  did  bring  primarily  a  destruc- 
tion of  self-discipline.  It  Is  not  difficult  to  foresee  that 
much  of  this  work  must  be  undone.  If  kindergarten 
methods  are  allowed  to  penetrate  where  self-discipline  of 
attention  should  be  learned,  the  future  citizen  has  lost  his 
chance. 

Whoever  is  allowed  always  to  follow  the  path  of  least 


i8  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

resistance  will  soon  find  any  work  drudgery  and  any  ef- 
fort tiring  and  a  torture  to  his  nerves.  A  child  who 
never  has  received  an  order,  but  who  at  six  years  of  age 
has  been  only  begged  and  persuaded,  will  never  be  his 
own  master  at  twenty-six.  Self-control  demands  a  long 
preparation,  and  lack  of  self-control  is  only  another  name 
for  many  of  those  symptoms  which  the  outsider  calls 
nervousness.  There  is  no  work  In  the  world  most  of 
which  is  not  drudgery  and  an  irritation  to  the  nerves  for 
one  who,  in  his  time  of  education,  forgot  to  learn  the 
joy  of  doing  his  duty.  I  read  this  morning  in  a  great 
newspaper:  "There  are  few  more  trying  and  nerve- 
wrecking  tasks  than  that  of  beating  eggs  by  hand;  to 
keep  the  hand  moving  at  the  right  speed  requires  the  con- 
centration of  much  nerve-force."  I  have  never  tried  it 
myself,  and  therefore  cannot  compare  this  "  nerve-wreck- 
ing task "  with  some  other  exhausting  demands  which 
this  cruel  age  of  ours  requires  from  our  nervous  system; 
but  I  feel  sure  that  they  are  mostly  of  similar  character. 
And  while  I  see  with  delight  from  the  same  article  that 
this  particular  scourge  of  mankind  has  lost  its  terror, 
since  a  machine  has  been  invented  with  a  paddle  that 
works  automatically  to  beat  eggs,  I  am  certain  that  in 
the  meantime  this  type  of  mind  has  discovered  a  score 
of  other  nerve-wrecking  tasks.  Seriously,  the  more  we 
spoil  our  attention  and  cultivate  in  ourselves  the  passive 
attitude  which  Is  driven  hither  and  thither  by  every 
changing  event,  the  more  we  must  become  frightened  by 
the  real  work  of  the  world  which  does  not  allow  us  to 


THE  FEAR  OF  NERVES  19 

shift.  The  school-teacher  Is  more  important  for  curing 
the  nervousness  of  our  time  than  the  physician. 

But  one  other  important  point  must  not  be  overlooked 
if  we  try  to  understand  why  the  surface  view  of  our 
social  life  gives  such  an  Impression  of  nervous  restless- 
ness. It  Is  the  predominance  of  the  feminine  mind  in 
the  shaping  of  national  society.  The  other  day  I  heard 
a  solemn  speech  by  an  old  gentleman  who  declared  once 
more  that  the  chief  difference  between  our  age  and  the 
past  is  the  technical  discoveries.  Some  days  later  I 
gained  much  deeper  wisdom  from  the  lips  of  a  little  boy. 
I  was  visiting  a  large  new  school  In  Buffalo.  The  prin- 
cipal brought  me  Into  a  history  class  where  the  children 
had  just  been  learning  about  the  old  Romans  and  their 
family  organization.  The  first  question  which  the  young 
woman  teacher  asked  In  our  presence  was  the  momentous 
one:  "What  do  you  think  is  the  greatest  difference  be- 
tween the  life  of  the  old  Romans  and  our  modern  Amer- 
ican life?"  She  pointed  to  a  little  boy  who  arose  and 
said:  "With  the  old  Romans  the  father  was  the  head 
of  the  family."  The  whole  situation  was  Illuminated  In 
a  marvelous  way. 

Yes,  in  our  age  the  woman  Is  the  head  of  the  family, 
and  the  woman  Is  the  head  of  our  social  life ;  is  the  head 
of  our  art  and  literature ;  is  the  head  of  our  social  reforms 
and  our  public  movements;  Is  the  head  of  our  intellectual 
culture  and  of  our  moral  development.  Who  can  deny 
that  it  has  brought  to  the  nation  an  abundance  of  help 
and  of  charm?     It  has  kept  alive  the  nobler  interests 


20  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

when  the  men's  energies  were  absorbed  by  the  rough 
pioneer  work  of  the  land.  But  for  this  very  reason,  it 
was  unavoidable  that  public  life  should  have  accepted 
many  characteristic  features  which  belong  essentially  to 
the  female  mind.  And  there  is  none  more  typical  than 
the  shifting  of  attention.  The  feminine  mind  certainly 
has  an  inferior  power  of  inhibition  and  therefore  less  en- 
ergy of  concentration.  If  we  characterize  it  in  this  way, 
it  sounds  as  If  it  were  a  defect,  but  shadow  and  light  lie 
near  together.  The  woman  does  not  inhibit;  she  lives 
less  in  abstractions  and,  ultimately,  that  means  that  she 
sees  things  and  persons  in  their  wholeness,  where  men 
see  only  one-sided  aspects.  In  short,  this  peculiarity  of 
the  feminine  mind  has  its  great  advantages.  It  will  do 
much  more  justice  to  a  personality,  because  all  aspects 
are  considered,  the  attention  moving  from  one  to  another. 
It  is  the  ideal  mental  condition  for  work  which  demands 
plenty  of  small  detail,  where  the  attention  has  to  go  from 
one  thing  to  another  without  any  long  focusing  at  a  par- 
ticular point.  Here  centers  the  remarkable  talent  of  the 
woman  for  the  care  of  the  home ;  here  lies  her  wonderful 
influence  for  harmony  and  beauty,  for  the  conservation  of 
traditions,  and  for  the  emotional  life. 

But  all  these  talents  and  traits  of  the  woman's  mind 
must  produce  very  different  effects  when  her  sphere  of 
activity  becomes  unrestricted.  That  which  gives  charm- 
ing lightness  to  the  female  activity  in  the  narrower  sphere 
easily  becomes  a  flippant  superficiality  and  a  nervous  rest- 
lessness   in    the    wider    realm.     The    predominance    of 


THE  FEAR  OF  NERVES  21 

women  with  quickly  moving  attention  gives  to  the  Amer- 
ican life  a  general  aspect  of  haste  and  nervousness,  where 
every  movement  is  quickly  taken  up  and  quickly  forgot- 
ten, where  fads  and  fancies  are  alternating  with  undig- 
nified rapidity,  and  where  public  discussions  too  often  re- 
main superficial  and  controlled  by  feeling. 

Hence,  in  order  to  cure  the  so-called  nervousness  of 
our  time,  the  remedies  ought  to  be  adapted  to  these  true 
evils.  The  dumb-bells  and  bromides  are  not  enough. 
On  the  one  side  we  need  more  training  in  self-discipline, 
in  continuous  effort,  in  voluntary  attention,  and  in  thor- 
oughness; and  on  the  other,  more  willingness  of  the  men 
to  share  with  the  women  the  control  of  our  cultural  life, 
and  to  bring  to  it  steadiness  and  persistence.  This  self- 
discipline  will  also  eliminate  many  nuisances  which,  from 
a  medical  point  of  view,  really  interfere  with  nervous 
health.  For  instance,  the  whole  radicalism  of  the  pro- 
hibition movement  would  not  be  necessary  if  there  were 
more  training  for  self-control.  To  prohibit  always 
means  only  the  removal  of  the  temptation,  but  what  Is 
endlessly  more  important  is  to  remain  temperate  in  the 
midst  of  a  world  of  temptation.  The  rapid  growth  of 
divorce,  the  silly  chase  for  luxury,  the  rivalry  In  ostenta- 
tion and  in  the  gratification  of  personal  desires  in  a  hun- 
dred forms  cannot  be  cured  If  only  one  or  another  temp- 
tation Is  taken  out  of  sight.  The  improvement  must 
come  from  within.  The  fault  Is  in  ourselves.  In  our 
prejudices,  in  our  training.  In  our  habits,  and  in  our  fan- 
ciful fear  of  nervousness. 


11 

THE  CHOICE  OF  A  VOCATION 


II 

THE  CHOICE  OF  A  VOCATION 

TN  those  colleges  where  the  choice  of  a  course  is  left 
to  the  student,  it  is  always  interesting  to  inquire  into 
the  motives  that  guide  the  preference.  Of  the  hundreds 
who  flock  to  a  course  In  history,  or  economics,  or  chem- 
istry, or  literature,  certainly  there  are  many  who  know 
that  they  have  chosen  the  course  that  they  need  and  the 
one  that  will  be  most  profitable  for  their  Inner  develop- 
ment. But  there  are  others,  and  those  others  are  far  too 
many.  Some  students  select  a  course  because  their 
friends  are  taking  it,  others  because  they  have  heard  that 
it  is  a  "  soft  snap."  Sometimes  a  course  is  chosen  be- 
cause the  lecturer  Is  well  known  for  his  witty  remarks, 
sometimes  because  the  lecture  hour  conflicts  least  with 
the  training  for  athletics,  and  again  because  the  lecture 
room  Is  conveniently  located  downstairs  or  because  the 
books  needed  for  the  course  are  small  enough  to  be  car- 
ried in  the  pocket. 

On  the  whole,  this  situation  also  pictures  the  methods 
by  which  the  American  youth  chooses  his  life  work.  The 
overwhelming  majority  must  enter  upon  a  bread-win- 
ning life  when  the  graded  school  has  been  passed.  Here 
also  a  large  number  certainly  have  an  aim  and  a  goal,  and 

25, 


26  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

with  firm  step  they  enter  the  chosen  path.  But  a  dis- 
couraging number  of  boys  and  girls  are  drifting  here  and 
there  from  haphazard  motives  and  most  trivial  causes. 
The  hasty  advice  of  an  incompetent  friend,  a  chance  ad- 
vertisement, a  superficial  liking  for  some  surface  features 
of  a  calling  without  any  knowledge  of  its  real  duties,  a 
vague  illusory  idea  as  to  the  great  financial  rewards  of 
a  line  of  work,  push  a  boy  in  this  or  that  direction.  As  he 
has  not  been  trained  for  any  definite  thing,  and  has 
neither  a  conscious  preference  nor  sufficient  knowledge  of 
the  social  world  with  its  openings  and  its  opportunities, 
he  is  glad  to  slip  in  anywhere. 

All  this  repeats  itself,  not  very  differently  though  on 
a  somewhat  higher  level,  with  that  smaller  part  of  the 
population  that  has  passed  through  the  high  schools.  To 
be  sure,  those  four  additional  years  have  given  to  many  a 
boy  a  wholesome  opportunity  to  find  himself  and  to  dis- 
cover his  aptitudes  and  interests.  But,  if  we  watch  the 
further  development,  we  witness  the  depressing  sight  of 
the  same  haphazard  selection  of  a  practical  career,  the 
same  ignorance,  the  same  valuation  of  petty  circum- 
stances, the  same  drifting.  The  most  important  step  in 
life  is  often  taken  with  hardly  more  deliberation  than 
many  of  those  boys  would  use  In  selecting  a  new  suit  of 
clothes. 

The  student  who  recklessly  chooses  his  lecture  course 
in  college  may  lose  the  highest  gain,  but  the  result  will 
not  be  serious  harm.  Every  course  is  planned  so  as  to 
give  him  something  of  value.     But   an   unsuitable   life 


THE  CHOICE  OF  A  VOCATION  27 

course  may  result  in  real  harm  —  yes,  In  failure  and 
wreck.  Surely  the  divorce  mills  of  the  country  have 
enough  to  do;  but  the  cases  In  which  a  man  Is  divorced 
from  his  profession,  or  at  least  ought  to  be  divorced  from 
It  If  his  life  Is  not  to  be  misery  to  him,  are  even  more 
numerous.  Yet,  the  cases  of  failure  are  not  the  only  ones 
that  count  against  the  present  system.  From  the  national 
point  of  view,  the  absurd  wastefulness  condemns  this 
reckless  scheme  no  less.  The  boy  who  drives  a  butcher's 
cart,  then  becomes  call  boy  In  a  hotel,  afterward  goes  to 
work  in  a  factory,  and  a  few  weeks  later  tries  the  next 
chance  job  that  offers  itself,  loses  the  great  advantage 
of  systematic  training  for  a  definite  task. 

No  one  can  deny  that  this  careless  shifting  and  unpre- 
pared entrance  upon  a  life  career  is  dangerously  favored 
by  certain  conditions  of  American  life.  Politics  and  the 
whole  social  structure  of  the  country  have  always  encour- 
aged the  view  that  everybody  is  fit  for  everything.  The 
traditional  disrespect  for  the  expert,  the  old-fashioned 
spoils  system,  the  tendency  of  democracy  to  put  the  tech- 
nical government  of  towns  Into  the  hands  of  untrained 
men,  have  too  long  reinforced  the  impression  that  noth- 
ing but  the  possession  of  intelligence  and  energy  are  nec- 
essary to  fill  any  place.  The  absence  of  social  barriers 
and  the  predominance  of  the  money  influence,  the  lack  of 
discipline  and  authority  in  the  education  of  the  youth, 
and,  perhaps  strongest  of  all,  the  natural  wealth  of  the 
nation,  work  in  the  same  direction.  The  country  could 
afford  the  limitless  waste  of  human  energies,  just  as  it 


28  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

felt  justified  in  wasting  the  timber  resources  of  the  forest. 

But  in  recent  years  all  this  has  changed.  The  more 
complex  conditions  of  modern  life,  the  progress  of  science 
and  economics,  of  sanitation  and  education,  have  grad- 
ually taught  the  country  a  new  respect  for  the  services  of 
the  expert;  the  devastating  spoils  system  has  had  to 
yield,  and  the  national  conscience  has  forcefully  awaked 
in  its  protest  against  the  waste  of  the  national  resources. 
This  new  spirit  has  at  last  started  a  growing  conviction 
among  thinking  people  that  something  must  be  done  for 
the  youth  who  seeks  a  vocation. 

To  many  the  most  natural  way  would  seem  to  be  in  a 
reorganization  of  the  schools.  Indeed,  it  has  often  been 
proposed  to  give  to  the  child  a  greater  chance  for  special- 
ization, even  in  the  lower  schools.  In  this  way  the  school 
might  develop  little  specialists  who  would  be  better  pre- 
pared than  others  for  certain  lines  of  work,  and  who  would 
be  more  successful  through  such  early  training.  More- 
over, the  school  would  have  opportunity  to  adjust  such 
early  specialization  to  the  gifts  and  predominant  interests 
of  the  individual  boy  or  girl.  But  a  more  thorough  study 
of  the  functions  of  the  public  school  sounds  a  decided 
warning  against  this  tendency.  Dangers  lurk  there  on  all 
sides.  The  safety  of  the  nation  demands  a  real  com- 
mon ground  for  the  whole  population,  a  common  educa- 
tion in  the  fundamentals  of  the  national  life.  The  more 
years  the  youth  of  the  country  can  devote  to  a  general 
education,  the  more  wholesome  will  be  the  state  of  society 


THE  CHOICE  OF  A  VOCATION  29 

and  the  stronger  the  inner  life  of  the  individual.  The 
school  must  give  to  everybody  that  which  binds  us  all  in 
a  common  social  intercourse,  in  an  understanding  of  the 
public  life  and  of  nature.  The  school  would  be  hampered 
in  this  its  highest  mission  if  its  program  were  encroached 
upon  by  the  demands  of  personal  calling. 

But  the  dangers  of  a  pseudo-professional  work  in  the 
schools  would  result  no  less  from  the  intrusion  of  an  ele- 
ment of  personal  whim  and  fancy.  The  child  would  fol- 
low his  personal  liking  at  a  time  when  he  needs  most  of 
all  to  learn  to  overcome  his  mere  likes  and  dislikes. 
In  the  years  that  should  be  devoted  to  the  learning  of 
the  highest  task,  the  doing  of  one's  duty,  the  boys  and 
girls  would  be  encouraged  in  the  ruinous  habit  of  follow- 
ing the  path  of  least  resistance.  The  vocational  aspect 
ought  to  be  excluded  absolutely  from  the  public  schools. 
Even  subjects  like  manual  training,  which  may  become 
most  useful  for  certain  practical  callings,  in  the  school- 
room ought  to  be  kept  in  the  position  of  a  formal  disci- 
pline. The  boy  should  learn  in  his  manual  training  les- 
son that  power  of  accuracy  and  observation,  of  attention 
and  energy,  that  will  be  helpful  to  him  in  every  walk  of 
life;  he  should  not  learn  carpentry  there  in  order  to  be- 
come a  carpenter.  Truly,  they  are  the  youth's  best  friends 
who  insist  that  this  principle  ought  to  hold  even  up  to 
the  higher  stages  of  school  life.  More  elasticity  may  be 
allowed  in  the  high  school,  and  still  more  in  the  college 
work;  but  even  these  will  ultimately  be  the  more  helpful 


30  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

the  freer  they  are  kept  from  professional  aspects.  Only 
when  the  schools  have  poured  out  their  floods  must  the 
stream  be  guided  into  safe  channels. 

In  the  institution  of  vocational  schools  a  most  important 
step  forward  has  been  taken.  Industrial  education  and 
trade  schools  have  at  last  won  the  interest  of  progressive 
countries.  By  means  of  these  perhaps  more  than  by  any- 
thing else,  modem  Germany  has  made  its  rapid  strides  for- 
ward. The  boy  of  fourteen  who  cannot  afford  to  prolong 
his  general  education  can  do  no  better  than  to  get  thor- 
ough instruction  in  a  specialized  line.  The  advantage  of 
these  vocational  schools  would  have  to  be  acknowledged 
without  reservation  if  we  did  not  face  one  serious  danger. 
The  school  is  excellent  for  the  boy  who  would  otherwise 
spend  his  time  in  a  desultory  bread-winning  activity;  but 
such  a  school  is  harmful  if  it  draws  the  boy  away  from  a 
further  pursuit  of  liberal  education.  It  would  be  most 
regrettable  if  the  industrial  schools  should  contribute  still 
more  to  the  growing  depletion  of  the  high  schools.  The 
vocational  school  is  the  desirable  solution  for  those  who 
cannot  afford  the  higher  school,  but  it  is  undesirable  for 
those  who,  for  practical  reasons,  prefer  it  to  a  further  lib- 
eral training.  Yet,  if  this  danger  is  kept  sufficiently  in 
view,  the  blessing  of  the  vocational  school  for  the  youth 
who  is  seeking  a  life  work  must  be  most  heartily  acknowl- 
edged. 

Similar  in  importance  is  the  establishment  of  vocation 
bureaus,  a  movement  that  was  started  in  Boston  by  the  late 
Professor  Parsons,  a  true  benefactor  to  the  community,  and 


THE  CHOICE  OF  A  VOCATION  31 

that  has  been  taken  up  in  various  other  places.  It  repre- 
sents an  Innovation  of  unlimited  possibilities.  Parsons' 
posthumous  work  on  the  choice  of  a  vocation  outlines  his 
plans  and  suggests  vividly  the  manifold  cases  that  have 
been  helped  by  the  work  of  the  vocation  bureau.  He  rec- 
ognized clearly  that  the  need  for  guidance  is  at  no  time 
in  life  more  essential  than  in  the  transition  from  school  to 
work.  He  saw  that  inefficiency  and  change  of  vocation, 
with  all  the  waste  and  cost  involved,  "  are  largely  due  to 
the  haphazard  way  in  which  young  men  and  women  drift 
into  employments,  with  little  or  no  regard  to  adaptability, 
and  without  adequate  preparation  or  any  definite  aim  or 
well-considered  plan  to  insure  success." 

The  effort  of  the  vocation  bureau  is  to  remedy  these  con- 
ditions through  expert  counsel  and  guidance.  The  im- 
mediate means  consist,  first,  in  furnishing  the  young  people 
with  a  knowledge  of  the  requirements  and  conditions  of 
success,  the  compensations,  opportunities,  and  prospects  in 
different  lines  of  work;  second,  in  guiding  the  candidate  to 
a  clear  understanding  of  his  own  aptitudes,  abilities.  Inter- 
ests, resources,  and  limitations.  Moreover,  the  officers  of 
the  vocation  bureau  must  act  as  true  counselors,  reasoning 
patiently  with  the  boy  or  girl  on  the  practical  relations  be- 
tween their  personal  qualities  and  those  objective  conditions 
of  the  social  fabric.  Thus  the  goal  of  the  bureau  is  to  find 
for  every  one  the  occupation  that  is  in  fullest  harmony  with 
his  nature  and  his  ambitions  and  that  will  secure  for  him 
the  greatest  possible  permanent  interest  and  economic 
value.     No  doubt  much  depends  upon  the  wisdom  and 


32  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

judgment,  the  sympathy  and  insight,  of  the  counselor;  and 
not  every  manager  of  such  an  institute  will  equal  in  that 
respect  the  founder  of  the  first  vocation  bureau.  Cer- 
tainly, for  such  a  task,  thorough  preparation  is  needed,  and 
the  equipment  of  a  pioneer  school  for  the  training  of  voca- 
tional counselors  was  therefore  necessarily  the  next  step. 

The  gathering  of  objective  data  that  are  needed  to  fur- 
nish all  possible  information  has  been  most  successfully 
started,  and  the  little  guide-book  already  contains  unusually 
rich  material  regarding  the  conditions  of  efficiency  and  suc- 
cess in  different  industries;  a  classification  of  industries;  a 
most  suggestive  list  of  ways  of  earning  money  that  arc 
open  to  women  at  home  and  away  from  home,  indoors  and 
out  of  doors,  skilled  and  unskilled.  The  bureau  has  also 
prepared  schedules  showing  the  earnings  for  each  industry, 
the  average  wage,  sex,  and  nativity  of  persons  engaged  in 
various  occupations,  the  movement  of  demand  in  about  two 
hundred  vocations  during  the  last  decades,  and  many  sim- 
ilar facts  that  would  furnish  the  background  for  the  dis- 
cussion of  any  industrial  case.  All  this  becomes  significant 
when  applied  to  the  personal  qualifications  of  the  candi- 
date. 

The  methods  employed  to  determine  these  Individual 
facts  are,  so  far,  of  a  more  tentative  character.  Here,  de- 
cidedly, discussion  is  still  open.  And  this  is  the  point  at 
which  the  interest  of  the  experimental  psychologist  is  at- 
tracted, and  It  appears  his  duty  to  take  part  In  the  discus- 
sion. The  emphasis  of  the  inquiry  lies,  as  yet,  on  a  self- 
analysis  and  on  the  impression  of  the  counselor.     In  order 


THE  CHOICE  OF  A  VOCATION  33 

to  get  the  fullest  possible  self-analysis,  the  candidate  is 
asked  to  answer,  in  writing,  a  large  number  of  questions 
that  refer  to  his  habits  and  his  emotions,  his  likings  and  his 
ambitions,  his  characteristics  and  his  resources,  his  experi- 
ences and  his  capacities.  It  seems  in  a  high  degree  doubt- 
ful whether  the  results  obtained  by  this  method  really 
throw  a  clear  light  on  those  mental  factors  that  the  coun- 
selor needs  for  his  advice.  Such  self-analysis  is  very  diffi- 
cult and,  above  all,  very  easily  misleading.  The  average 
man  knows  his  mental  functions  as  little  as  he  knows  the 
muscles  that  he  uses  in  walking  or  speaking.  For  instance, 
the  boy  is  asked  questions  like  the  following : 

Compare  yourself  as  to  courage  with  others  of  your  age. 
Is  your  attitude  toward  employers  cordial  and  sympathetic  or  not? 
If  you  could  have  your  every  wish  fulfilled,  what  would  be  your 
first  half  dozen  wishes? 
What  sort  of  people  do  you  prefer  to  live  with? 
Mention  the  limitations  and  defects  in  yourself. 
Do  you  cultivate  smiles  and  laughter  by  right  methods? 
Do  you  take  care  to  pronounce  your  words  clearly? 
Do  you  look  people  frankly  in  the  eye? 
Are  you  a  good  listener? 
Are  you  thoughtful  of  the  comfort  of  others? 
Can  you  manage  people  well? 
Are  you  planning  to  form  further  friendships? 
Do  you  talk  a  good  deal  about  yourself? 
Are  your  inflections  natural  and  cheery? 

Such  questions,  representative  of  the  most  varied  fields 
of  inquiry,  may  yield  bits  of  suggestion  as  to  character  in 
some  cases,  but  they  may,  no  less  frequently,  be  answered 
misleadingly.  To  estimate  the  value  of  his  replies  we 
should  have  to  know  the  boy  thoroughly ;  yet  we  seek  those 


34  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

replies  in  order  to  get  that  thorough  knowledge.  Hence 
we  move  in  a  circle.  If  we  desire  a  careful,  exact  analysis 
of  mental  functions,  we  must  not  forget  that  the  last  de- 
cades have  brought  the  science  of  the  mind  to  a  point 
where  such  an  analysis  can  be  performed  by  means  of  an 
exact  experimental  science.  The  modern  psychological 
laboratory  disentangles  the  mental  functions  with  a  sub- 
tlety that  surpasses  the  mere  self-observation  of  practical 
life  as  much  as  the  search  with  the  microscope  surpasses 
the  viewing  of  objects  with  the  naked  eye. 

It  Is  true  that  the  modem  psychological  laboratory  has 
been  interested  primarily  in  the  finding  of  general  laws  for 
the  mental  life.  But  in  recent  years  the  attention  of  ex- 
perimental psychologists  has  turned  more  and  more  to  the 
study  of  individual  differences  and  to  the  development  of 
methods  designed  to  bring  these  differences  to  the  clearest 
perception.  We  now  realize  that  questions  as  to  the  men- 
tal capacities  and  functions  and  powers  of  an  individual 
can  no  longer  be  trusted  to  impressionistic  replies.  If  we 
are  to  have  reliable  answers,  we  must  make  use  of  the 
available  resources  of  the  psychological  laboratory. 
These  resources  emancipate  us  from  the  illusions  and  emo- 
tions of  the  self-observer.  The  well-arranged  experiment 
measures  the  mental  states  with  the  same  exactness  with 
which  the  chemical  or  physical  examination  of  the  physi- 
cian studies  the  organism  of  the  individual. 

Of  course,  the  psychological  experiment  does  not  enter 
into  such  complicated  questions  as  those  quoted.     It  turns 


THE  CHOICE  OF  A  VOCATION  35 

to  the  elements  of  mental  life.  And  just  here  lies  Its 
strength.  As  the  organs  of  man  are  merely  combinations 
of  cells  and  tissues,  so  his  mental  personality  is  a  complex 
combination  of  elementary  states.  If  we  know  the  simple 
parts,  we  can  calculate  beforehand  the  fundamental  direc- 
tion of  the  development.  On  the  other  hand,  we  can  an- 
alyze every  calling  and  vocation  in  order  to  find  there,  too, 
the  essential  elements  and  fundamental  features.  We  can 
determine  which  particular  mental  activities  are  needed 
for  special  lines  of  life  work,  and  can  then  compare  these 
demands  with  the  table  of  results  from  an  experimental 
analysis  of  the  special  mind.  Only  the  application  of  ex- 
perimental tests  can  give  to  the  advisory  work  that  subtle 
adjustment  by  which  discrimination  between  similar  tasks 
becomes  possible. 

To  give  an  Illustration,  there  are  mills  In  which 
everything  depends  on  the  ability  of  the  workingman  to 
watch,  at  the  same  time,  a  large  number  of  moving  shut- 
tles, and  to  react  quickly  on  a  disturbance  In  any  one.  The 
most  industrious  workman  will  be  unsuccessful  at  such 
work  if  his  attention  Is  of  the  type  that  prevents  him  from 
such  expansion  of  mental  watchfulness.  The  same  man 
might  be  most  excellent  as  a  worker  in  the  next  mill,  where 
the  work  demanded  was  dependent  upon  strong  concentra- 
tion of  attention  on  one  point.  There  he  would  surpass 
his  competitors  just  because  he  lacked  expanded  attention 
and  had  the  focusing  type.  The  young  man  with  an  in- 
clination to  mill  work  does  not  know  these  differences, 


36  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

and  his  mere  self-observation  would  never  tell  him 
whether  his  attention  was  of  the  expansive  or  of  the  con- 
centrated type. 

The  psychological  laboratory  can  test  these  individual 
differences  of  attention  by  a  few  careful  experiments.  The 
psychologist,  therefore,  is  in  a  position  to  advise  the  youth 
at  which  type  of  factory  to  apply  for  work  and  which 
to  avoid.  Under  present  methods  all  would  be  largely  a 
matter  of  chance.  The  man  with  the  focusing  attention 
might  seek  work  In  the  mill  where  distributed  attention 
is  needed,  and  would  feel  sure  that  his  industry  and  good 
will  were  sufficient  to  make  him  successful  in  his  work. 
And  yet  the  result  would  be  disappointment  and  failure. 
Discouragement  would  ensue.  He  would  soon  lose  his 
place,  and  drift  on.  The  psychologist  might  have  turned 
him  in  the  right  direction.  The  laboratory  would  have 
reproduced  the  essential  characteristics  of  those  various 
machines,  and  would  have  measured,  perhaps  in  thou- 
sandth parts  of  a  second,  the  rapidity,  and  In  millimeters 
the  accuracy,  with  which  the  reacting  movements  were 
performed  at  the  various  types  of  apparatus.  These 
differences  of  attention  are  most  important  in  various 
callings;  and  yet,  the  layman  is  inclined  to  discriminate 
only  between  good  and  bad  attention.  He  is  not  aware 
that  there  exist  a  large  variety  of  types  of  attention,  each 
of  which  may  be  favorable  for  certain  life  works  and  very 
unfavorable  for  others. 

To  be  sure,  all  such  laboratory  tests  presuppose  a  real 
knowledge  and  careful  analysis  of  the  work  to  be  per- 


THE  CHOICE  OF  A  VOCATION  37 

formed.  Dilettantism  here  would  easily  lead  Into  blind 
alleys.  I  remember  a  case  where  the  Boston  Vocation 
Bureau  asked  me  to  examine  the  auditory  reaction  time 
of  a  young  man  who  wanted  to  become  a  stenographer. 
The  examination  was  to  determine  whether  his  response 
to  sound  was  quicker  or  slower  than  the  average.  If  it 
were  slower,  he  was  to  be  warned  against  the  career  of 
a  shorthand-writer. 

I  refused  to  undertake  the  test,  because  I  considered 
that  the  conclusion  would  be  misleading.  Even  if  the 
boy  reacted  slowly,  so  that  the  first  word  that  he  heard 
were  written  down  by  him  possibly  a  fifth  of  a  second 
later  than  his  competitor  wrote  it,  would  that  really  show 
him  to  be  less  efficient?  If  both  were  to  write  from  dic- 
tation for  a  whole  hour,  the  boy  with  the  slower  reaction 
time  would  still,  at  the  end  of  the  hour,  be  just  a  fifth  of 
a  second  behind  the  other,  which,  of  course,  would  be  of 
no  consequence.  The  quickness  of  the  other  man's  sound 
reaction  would  not  make  it  at  all  certain  that  he  would 
hold  out  with  his  shorthand-writing  as  long  as  the  slower 
man.  In  the  Imagination  of  the  counselor,  it  appeared 
that  the  delay  of  a  fifth  of  a  second  on  the  first  word 
would  bring  an  additional  delay  on  the  next  word,  and 
that  the  time  lost  would  In  this  way  accumulate.  What 
really  needed  to  be  examined  was  the  rapidity  of  succes- 
sive action  and  the  retention  In  memory  of  the  spoken 
words. 

This  problem  of  retention,  too,  demands  very  subtle 
inquiry.     The  future  stenographer  knows  that  he  needs 


38  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

a  good  memory,  but  to  him  the  word  "  memory  "  covers 
mental  functions  that  the  psychologist  must  carefully  sep- 
arate. The  young  man  confidently  asserts  that  he  has  a 
good  memory  for  words,  because  after  a  long  interval  he 
remembers  what  he  has  learned.  Yet,  that  is  an  aspect 
of  memory  that  is  of  no  consequence  for  his  shorthand 
work.  The  memory  he  needs  is  that  of  immediate  re- 
tention. Experimental  analyses  demonstrate  that  this 
retention  and  the  later  remembering  are  two  quite  inde- 
pendent functions.  For  instance,  the  child  has  strong 
power  of  remembering,  but  small  power  of  retention, 
while  in  the  adult  the  power  of  retention  surpasses  that 
of  remembering.  The  child  must  hear  a  number  of 
words  or  figures  mare  often  than  the  adult  before  he  can 
repeat  them  correctly.  But,  once  the  adult  and  the  child 
have  learned  those  figures,  the  chances  are  that  the  child 
will  remember  them  after  a  longer  time  than  the  adult. 
The  laboratory  experimenter  would  always  have  to  sep- 
arate the  test  for  such  immediate  reproduction  from  that 
for  the  later  recall,  and  would  have  to  consider  carefully 
in  which  vocations  the  one  or  the  other  is  an  essential 
condition  of  success. 

But  if  the  psychological  conditions  of  different  vocations 
were  scientifically  disentangled  and  the  mental  analysis 
were  carried  through  with  all  the  discriminations  that  the 
progress  of  experimental  psychology  suggests,  the  voca- 
tion bureau  would  secure  data  that  would  be  of  the 
highest  service.  The  association  of  ideas  and  the  appre- 
ciation  of   the   outer   world,    the   imagination    and   the 


THE  CHOICE  OF  A  VOCATION  39 

emotions,  the  feelings  and  the  will,  the  attention  and  the 
discrimination,  the  accuracy  and  the  effort,  the  sug- 
gestibility and  the  judgment,  the  persistence  and  the 
fatigue,  the  adaptability  and  the  temperament,  the  skill, 
and  even  the  character,  with  a  hundred  other  functions 
and  their  interrelations,  could  be  mapped  out  by  decisive 
experiments.  No  boy  ought  to  become  a  chauffeur,  how- 
ever his  fancy  is  excited  by  motor-cars.  If  his  reaction 
times  in  the  laboratory  Indicate  that  he  would  not  be 
quick  enough  to  stop  his  automobile  if  a  child  ran  in 
front  of  the  wheels.  No  one  ought  to  try  for  secretarial 
work  who  shows  In  the  laboratory  lack  of  Inhibitory  power 
and  therefore  a  probable  inability  to  be  discreet.  The 
boy  who  shows  no  sensitiveness  for  small  differences  ought 
not  to  work  in  a  mill  or  factory  In  which  his  labor  would 
be  a  constant  repetition  of  the  same  activity.  He  would  be 
oppressed  by  the  uniformity  of  the  work,  it  would  soon 
be  drudgery  for  him,  and,  with  his  Interest,  he  would 
lose  the  good  will.  The  next  boy,  who  is  sensitive  to 
small  differences,  might  find  In  the  same  work  an  inex- 
haustible pleasure  and  stimulus,  as  no  two  repetitions 
would  be  alike  for  him. 

The  other  day  I  wired  from  Boston  to  a  friend  In 
another  town  that  I  should  expect  him  the  next  day  at  the 
Hotel  Somerset.  The  telegram  arrived  with  the  state- 
ment that  I  should  be  at  the  Hotel  Touraine.  The 
operator  had  substituted  one  leading  hotel  of  Boston  for 
another.  No  good  will  on  his  part  can  help  that  young 
man.     He    Is   not   in    the   position   of   another    Boston 


40  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

operator,  whom  I  recently  gave  a  cablegram  to  Berlin,, 
and  who,  as  he  looked  up  the  rate,  asked:  "  Berlin  is 
in  France,  isn't  it?"  The  geography  of  the  latter  can 
be  cured,  but  the  mental  mechanism  of  the  former,  who 
under  pressure  of  rapid  work  substitutes  an  associated  idea 
for  the  given  one,  is  probably  fundamental.  The  psy- 
chological laboratory  would  easily  have  found  out  such 
mental  unreliability,  and  would  have  told  the  man  before- 
hand that,  however  industrious  he  might  be  and  however 
suited  for  a  hundred  other  professions,  that  of  the  tele- 
graph operator  would  not  be  one  in  which  he  could  reach 
the  fullest  success. 

The  establishment  of  psychological  laboratories  as  part 
of  municipal  vocation  bureaus  would  by  no  means  demand 
a  very  costly  and  elaborate  outfit.  An  intelligent  assistant 
with  thorough  psychological  training  could  secure  much 
of  the  material  with  a  minimum  of  apparatus.  There  are 
hundreds  of  psychological  experiments  that  can  be  carried 
out  with  some  cardboard  and  sheets  of  paper,  strings  and 
pins  and  needles,  little  outline  drawings  and  printed 
words,  small  colored  tops  and  levers,  hairpins  and  card- 
board boxes,  balls  and  boards,  picture-books  and  smelling- 
bottles,  a  pack  of  cards  and  a  set  of  weights  and  perhaps 
a  cheap  stop-watch.  Where  ampler  funds  are  at  the 
disposal  of  the  bureau,  an  electrical  chronoscope  ought  to 
be  added,  and.  If  possible,  a  kymograph.  But  in  all 
cases  the  experiments  themselves  may  be  relatively  simple, 
and  even  the  most  modest  apparatus  can  furnish  an 
abundance   of   insight   into   psychological   differences    of 


THE  CHOICE  OF  A  VOCATION  41 

which  the  mere  self-observation  of  the  candidate  does  not 
take  any  account  and  for  which  any  gaze  of  the  outer 
observer  would  be  insufficient. 

The  educational  psychologists  on  the  one  side,  the 
physicians,  and  especially  the  psychiatrists,  on  the  other, 
have  shown  us  the  way  in  this  field.  The  educator  may 
ask  a  child  to  strike  out  the  letter  e  wherever  it  occurs  in 
a  given  page,  and  to  do  it  as  quickly  as  possible.  He 
measures  the  time  it  requires  and  the  accuracy  with  which 
it  is  done  by  seeing  how  often  a  wrong  letter  has  been 
canceled  and  how  often  the  right  letter  has  been  over- 
looked. He  knows  that  even  such  a  rapid  test  indicates 
more  with  regard  to  the  attention  and  accuracy  and  swift- 
ness of  the  child  than  he  can  find  out  by  the  regular  school 
tests.  He  knows  that  only  such  elementary  inquiries  with 
exactly  measureable  results  can  discriminate  between  the 
various  factors  that  are  involved  in  any  complex  school 
work.  Or  the  educator  examines  the  power  of  the  chil- 
dren to  learn  or  to  count  at  various  hours  of  the  day,  and 
draws  from  it  pedagogical  conclusions  as  to  the  best  ar- 
rangement of  the  school  program.  Of  course,  the  school 
work  must  be  adjusted  to  the  average  since  all  must  have 
school  work  at  the  same  time.  Yet  such  experiments 
demonstrate  the  great  individual  differences.  The  curve 
of  fatigue  is  different  for  almost  every  individual.  More- 
over, the  psychological  experiment  can  analyze  the  great 
varieties  of  fatigue,  the  fluctuations,  the  chances  for  a 
restitution  of  energy  after  fatigue;  and  It  Is  evident  that 
every  result  can  be  translated  Into  advice  or  warning  with 


42  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

regard  to  the  vocational  choice  of  the  boy  or  girl.  There 
are  machines  to  which  people  with  one  type  of  fatigue 
could  never  be  adapted,  while  those  with  another  type 
might  do  excellent  work. 

Even  the  natural  rhythm  of  motor  functions  is  different 
for  every  individual.  The  pace  at  which  we  walk  or 
speak  or  write  Is  controlled  by  organic  conditions  of  our 
will,  and  Is  hardly  open  to  any  complete  change.  Again, 
it  Is  clear  that  the  thousands  of  technical  occupations  de- 
mand very  different  rhythms  of  muscle  contraction.  If 
a  man  of  one  natural  rhythmical  type  has  to  work  at  a 
machine  that  demands  a  very  different  rhythmical  pace, 
life  will  be  a  perpetual  conflict  in  which  irritation  and 
dissatisfaction  with  his  own  work  will  spoil  his  career 
and  will  ruin  his  chances  for  promotion.  In  a  similar 
way,  simple  experiments  might  determine  the  natural  lines 
of  Interest  In  a  boy  or  girl.  We  might  show  pictures 
of  farms  or  factories,  of  ships  or  railroads,  of  mines  or 
banks,  of  natural  scenery  or  street  scenes,  of  buildings  or 
theater  stages,  and  so  on.  How  much  is  kept  in  memory 
and  how  much  Is  correctly  appercelved  after  an  exposure 
of  a  few  seconds,  how  they  affect  the  emotional  expres- 
sions, and  similar  observations  of  objective  character,  may 
quickly  point  to  mental  traits  that  must  be  considered  if  a 
harmonious  life  work  Is  to  be  hoped  for. 

There  Is  no  fear  that  such  Institutes,  with  their  psy- 
chological laboratories,  would  play  the  guardian  in  too 
rigid  and  mechanical  a  way,  restricting  too  much  the 
natural  freedom  of  the  youth.     On  the  contrary,  nothing 


THE  CHOICE  OF  A  VOCATION  43 

but  the  counselor's  advice  would  be  intended,  and  no  one 
who  was  unwilling  to  listen  to  a  warning  would  be  re- 
strained from  following  his  own  inclination. 

The  young  genius  will  always  find  his  way  alone,  and 
even  his  severe  disappointments  are  a  beneficial  part  of  his 
schooling  for  higher  service ;  but  the  great  average  masses 
do  not  know  this  powerful  inner  energy  that  magnetically 
draws  the  mind  toward  the  Ideal  goal.  They  do  not 
know  the  world  and  its  demands;  they  do  not  know  the 
opportunities  and  the  rewards,  the  dangers  and  the  diffi- 
culties; and  they  do  not  know  themselves,  their  powers 
and  their  limitations.  The  old  Greek  legend  tells  us  that 
when  a  man  and  woman  find  each  other  for  life,  it  is  a 
reuniting  of  two  separate  halves  that  have  been  one  whole 
in  a  previous  existence.  This  ought  to  be  the  way  in 
which  a  man  and  his  profession  might  find  each  other. 
But  not  every  marriage  nowadays  suggests  the  Greek 
legend,  and  the  unity  of  vocation  and  individual  seems 
still  less  often  predestined.  And  If  fate  has  not  decided 
the  union  In  such  a  previous  life,  society  ought  at  least 
to  take  care  that  In  this  life  the  choice  be  made  with 
open  eyes  and  with  the  advice  of  a  counselor  who  knows 
how  to  fructify  the  psychological  knowledge  of  our  age. 


Ill 

THE  STANDING  OF  SCHOLARSHIP 


Ill 

THE   STANDING  OF   SCHOLARSHIP 

A  LL  signs  seem  to  point  in  the  same  direction.  From 
the  primary  school  to  the  university,  from  the 
kindergarten  to  the  vocational  life,  there  seems  to  arise 
in  our  day  a  demand  for  greater  thoroughness  and  effort 
and  serious  concentration.  A  hundred  symptoms  in- 
dicate, and  serious  educators  proclaim,  that  a  turn  of  the 
road  is  near.  There  may  have  been  a  time  —  perhaps  it 
is  only  a  legend  —  when  education  had  become  ineffective 
through  its  formalism  and  rigidity.  The  children  were 
forced  by  severe  methods  to  do  work  repugnant  to  them. 
The  prescribed  studies  of  the  college  boys  were  dry  and 
tiresome.  It  must  have  been  a  depressing  kind  of  in- 
struction in  which  the  best  energies  of  the  youth  were 
insistently  subdued.  A  great  reaction  had  to  come. 
School-time  was  to  be  made  a  period  of  happiness,  the 
child  was  to  learn  only  what  he  liked,  the  college  boy  was 
to  study  only  that  which  seemed  interesting.  Only  that 
which  appealed  to  the  taste  and  to  the  attention  was 
deemed  worthy  of  the  classroom.  Instead  of  formal 
training,  at  last  we  had  instruction  which  really  opened 
to  the  boys  and  girls  a  gay-colored  world  where  they 
might  enjoy  themselves  to  their  heart's  content.     It  was 

47 


48  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

a  period  in  which  the  children  were  no  longer  ordered, 
but  begged  and  persuaded;  in  which  the  abundance  of 
elective  courses  made  a  handsome  volume  out  of  the  an- 
nouncements of  the  smallest  college;  athletics  flourished, 
and  in  the  school  all,  with  the  exception  of  the  teachers, 
had  a  good  time. 

But  now  in  the  zigzag  movement  of  educational  prog- 
ress, a  new  counter-movement  seems  imminent.  We  have 
been  trying  the  national  experiment  long  enough  to  test 
its  results.  We  have  seen  the  girls  who  have  been 
educated  in  the  high  schools  with  "  current  events,"  and 
the  boys  who  were  no  longer  molested  by  the  demand  for 
Greek.  But  the  outcome  seemed  more  disappointing 
than  ever.  Every  one  who  was  not  deceived  by  a  showy 
exterior  soon  discovered  the  mental  flabbiness  and  super- 
ficiality which  resulted  from  the  go-as-you-please  methods. 
We  began  to  feel  that  those  who  had  never  learned  to 
obey  never  really  became  their  own  masters;  those  who 
had  never  trained  their  attention  by  forcing  their  will 
toward  that  which  is  unattractive  had  to  learn  by  severe 
disappointments  later  that  a  large  part  of  every  life's  work 
must  be  drudgery.  The  youth  left  the  school  with  a  hun- 
dred things  in  their  minds,  but  without  any  power  of 
intellectual  self-discipline. 

Our  public  life  reflects  this  lack  everywhere.  The 
newspapers  and  magazines,  the  theaters  and  the  social- 
reform  movements,  are  more  and  more  made  for  a  public 
which  looks  only  to  be  entertained,  and  which  has  lost 
the  power  of  sustained  attention  to  that  which  Is  not  at- 


THE  STANDING  OF  SCHOLARSHIP      49 

tractive  in  itself;  and  the  nation  slowly  begins  to  realize 
that  such  a  mental  state  of  the  community  is  the  natural 
soil  of  every  kind  of  moral  weed.  Thoroughness  is  only 
another  form  of  conscientiousness.  He  who  early  ac- 
quires the  habit  of  inaccuracy  and  carelessness  will  never 
have  the  energy  to  work  against  evil  where  it  is  easier 
and  more  convenient  to  let  things  go  as  they  will. 

We  stand  only  at  the  beginning  of  this  new  reaction, 
but  we  already  hear  from  many  sides  that  more  serious 
discipline  and  training  and  effort  must  be  secured.  This 
coincides  with  the  fact  that  educational  psychology,  since 
it  has  entered  into  the  stage  of  careful  experimental  work, 
has  brushed  away  the  widespread  prejudices  regarding 
the  training  of  mental  powers.  The  theorists  who  ad- 
vocated the  coddling  education  had  made  much  of  the 
fact  that  no  training  can  really  change  the  mental  powers 
of  the  Individual.  A  bad  memory  never  becomes  a  good 
one.  Experimental  psychology  has  demonstrated  the 
fallacy  of  such  pet  Ideas.  Memory  and  attention,  ap- 
perception and  reasoning,  feeling  and  emotion,  effort  and 
will,  can  be  remoulded  by  a  well-directed  education;  and 
this  development  of  the  mental  powers  may  easily  appear 
to  many  as  a  more  Important  gain  than  any  addition  to 
the  stored-up  knowledge  of  facts.  But  the  community  on 
the  whole  Is  not  eager  to  consult  the  experimental  psychol- 
ogist: from  the  deepest  needs  of  social  life  the  new  long- 
ing has  arisen. 

If  the  nation  Is  not  to  suffer  by  a  cheap  complacency 
and  the  triumph  of  ostentatious  mediocrity,   the  whole 


so  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

educational  life  must  be  filled  with  a  new  spirit  of  devotion 
to  serious  tasks.  The  commencement  addresses  of  the 
leading  men  of  the  country  this  year  have  given  fervent 
expression  to  this  instinctive  demand  of  the  nation.  So 
far  as  the  colleges  are  concerned,  one  imperative  change 
stands  in  the  center  of  every  platform:  scholarship  must 
receive  a  more  dignified  standing  in  the  eyes  of  the  un- 
dergraduates. The  constant  appeal  to  the  mere  liking  of 
child  and  boy  and  adolescent  has  finally  made  the  side- 
shows more  important  than  the  real  arena.  The  univer- 
sity administrations  practically  everywhere  recognize  such 
a  reform  as  a  most  urgent  need.  Means  must  be  found 
to  effect  a  complete  revision  in  the  views  of  the  average 
students.  So  long  as  the  best  human  material  in  our 
colleges  considers  it  as  more  or  less  below  its  level  to 
exert  effort  on  its  studies;  so  long  as  it  gladly  leaves  the 
high  marks  to  the  second-rate  grinds,  and  considers  it 
the  part  of  a  real  gentleman  to  spend  four  college  years 
with  work  done  well  enough  not  to  be  dismissed,  and 
poorly  enough  never  to  excel,  there  is  something  vitally 
wrong  in  the  academic  atmosphere. 

Some  seem  inclined  to  think  that  the  whole  blame  be- 
longs to  athletics.  If  the  interest  in  intercollegiate  sport 
is  allowed  to  take  hysteric  character,  and  if  the  successful 
college  athlete  stands  in  the  limelight  of  publicity,  it  ap- 
pears necessary  that  the  devotee  of  quiet  scholarship 
should  remain  unnoticed  in  the  dark,  and  that  his  modest 
career  should  not  attract  the  energetic  fellow.  What- 
ever the  reasons  may  be,  many  suggestions  for  reform 


THE  STANDING  OF  SCHOLARSHIP       51 

have  been  made.  Perhaps  none  may  more  quickly  lead 
to  an  improvement  than  the  much-discussed  plan  of  in- 
troducing a  stronger  element  of  competition  into  the 
scholarly  sphere,  and  thus  using  for  intellectual  purposes 
those  levers  which  have  been  so  effective  in  the  field  of 
sport.  The  effort  to  put  the  highest  energy  into  scholar- 
ship has  not  reached  its  ideal  form  so  long  as  it  is  con- 
trolled by  the  hope  of  surpassing  a  rival.  That  for 
which  we  must  aim  is  certainly  a  more  genuine  enthusiasm 
for  intellectual  efficiency.  And  yet  the  present  situation 
would  not  only  excuse,  but  really  demand,  the  fullest  pos- 
sible play  of  these  secondary  motives.  If  we  can  foster 
scholarship  by  an  appeal  to  the  spirit  of  rivalry,  by  all 
means  let  us  use  it.  We  may  hope  that  as  soon  as  better 
traditions  have  been  formed,  and  higher  opinions  have 
been  spread,  the  interest  in  the  serious  work  will  replace 
the  motives  of  vanity.  As  soon  as  the  finest  men  of  the 
college  turn,  from  whatever  motives,  with  their  full 
strength  toward  their  class-work,  the  masses  may  follow, 
and  higher  and  higher  ambitions  will  be  developed. 

Of  course,  no  one  can  overlook  some  intrinsic  difficulties 
in  the  way  of  such  plans.  No  artificial  premium  can 
focus  on  the  successful  scholar  that  same  amount  of 
flattering  interest  and  notoriety  which  the  athletic  victory 
easily  yields.  The  difference  lies  simply  in  the  fact  that 
the  student's  athletic  achievement  represents,  in  that  little 
field,  a  performance  which  may  be  compared  with  the 
very  best.  The  scholarly  work  of  the  undergraduate,  on 
the  other  hand,  at  its  highest  point  necessarily  remains 


52  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

nothing  but  a  praiseworthy  exercise,  incomparable  witii 
the  achievement  of  great  scholars.  The  student  football- 
player  may  win  a  world's  record;  the  student  scholar  in 
the  best  case  may  justify  noble  hopes,  but  his  achieve- 
ment will  be  surpassed  by  professional  scholars  every 
day. 

But  the  real  difficulties  in  the  transformation  of  the 
present  state,  after  all,  lie  much  deeper.  Certainly,  the 
faculties  of  the  universities  ought  not  to  leave  anything 
undone  which  may  shift  the  center  of  gravity  in  the  little 
encircled  academic  world.  But  however  high  the  hopes 
may  be,  we  ought  not  to  underestimate  the  much  greater 
difficulties  which  have  their  origin  outside  of  this  college 
world.  May  it  not  be  an  illusion  to  believe  that  the  de- 
plorable lack  of  appreciation  for  scholarship  of  students 
can  ever  be  fundamentally  changed  so  long  as  the  cor- 
responding ideas  in  the  great  world  outside  of  the  college 
campus  are  not  thoroughly  revised?  No  college  faculty 
can  change  situations  on  the  campus,  if  they  are  simply 
symptoms  and  results  of  the  conditions  in  our  whole  social 
organization.  The  scholarship  of  the  students  will  never 
be  fully  appreciated  by  the  most  vital  men  in  college  so 
long  as  public  opinion  does  not  back  them;  that  is,  so 
long  as  scholarship  has  no  real  standing  in  the  American 
community. 

If  we  are  sincere,  we  ought  not  to  overlook  the  fact 
that  the  scholar,  as  such,  has  no  position  in  public  opinion 
which  corresponds  to  the  true  value  of  his  achievement. 
The  foreigner  feels  at  once  this  difference  between  the 


THE  STANDING  OF  SCHOLARSHIP       53 

Americans  and  the  Europeans.  The  other  day  we 
mourned  the  death  of  Simon  Newcomb.  There  seems 
to  be  a  general  agreement  that  astronomy  is  the  one 
science  in  which  America  has  been  in  the  first  rank  of  the 
world,  and  that  Newcomb  was  the  greatest  American 
astronomer.  Yet  his  death  did  not  bring  the  slightest 
ripple  of  excitement.  The  death  of  the  manager  of  the 
professional  baseball  games  interested  the  country  rather 
more.  Public  opinion  did  not  show  the  slightest  con- 
sciousness of  an  incomparable  loss  at  the  hour  when  the 
nation's  greatest  scholar  closed  his  eyes.  And  if  I  com- 
pare it  with  that  deep  national  mourning  with  which  the 
whole  German  nation  grieved  at  the  loss  of  men  like 
Helmholtz  and  Mommsen  and  Virchow,  and  many  an- 
other, the  contrast  becomes  most  significant. 

When  the  president  of  Harvard  University  gave  up  his 
administrative  work,  the  old  Harvard  students  and  the 
whole  country  enthuisastically  brought  to  him  the  highest 
thanks  which  he  so  fully  deserved.  But  when,  the  year 
before,  William  James  left  Harvard,  the  most  famous 
scholar  who  has  worked  in  this  Harvard  generation,  the 
event  passed  by  like  a  routine  matter.  At  the  commence- 
ment festivities  every  speaker  spoke  of  the  departing  ad- 
ministrative officer,  but  no  one  thought  of  the  departing 
scholar.     And  that  exactly  expresses  the  general  feeling. 

It  was  said  with  emphasis  the  other  day  that  the 
strength  of  the  American  university  lies  in  its  graduates. 
In  Germany,  for  instance,  inside  and  outside  of  the  aca- 
demic circles,  every  one  would  take  it  as  a  matter  of  course 


54  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

that  the  strength  of  a  university  lies  exclusively  in  the 
professors;  and  moreover  in  the  professors  as  scholars. 
If  I  think  back  to  my  student  days  in  my  fatherland,  the 
greatest  events  of  those  happy  years  were  the  festivities 
and  torchlight  processions  which  we  boys  organized  for 
our  great  professors  when  they  declined  a  call  to  another 
university.  Their  work  and  their  fame  in  the  world  of 
scholarship  was  our  greatest  pride.  For  their  sake  we 
had  selected  one  or  another  alma  mater.  The  American 
students  feel  this  pride  and  attachment  only  for  the  in- 
stitution as  such ;  the  individual  scholars  there  are  to  them 
merely  the  appointed  teachers;  they  may  like  them  as 
teachers,  but  consider  their  scholarly  achievment  a  private 
affair. 

A  very  characteristic  symptom  of  the  situation  is  the 
prevalent  opinion  that  as  a  matter  of  course  every  pro- 
fessor is  ready  to  become  a  college  president.  Again  and 
again  scholars  from  most  widely  different  fields  are  dis- 
cussed for  presidencies,  even  in  places  where  they  would 
have  to  give  up  their  scholarly  work  and  be  obliged  to  go 
over  entirely  into  administrative  work.  It  is  evident  that 
such  a  change  lies  well  In  the  line  of  men  whose  scholar- 
ship refers  to  government  or  economics  or  similar  sub- 
jects. But  if  a  scholar  of  Greek  or  mathematics  is  treated 
as  an  equally  natural  candidate,  it  clearly  Indicates  that 
the  public  does  not  consider  the  university  professor 
primarily  as  a  productive  scholar,  but  essentially  as  an 
officer  of  the  institution.     To  change  from  a  professor- 


THE  STANDING  OF  SCHOLARSHIP       55 

ship  to  a  presidency  then  appears  as  a  kind  of  promotion, 
while  in  reality  it  means  a  change  of  profession. 

In  both  the  United  States  and  Germany  the  scholars 
are  almost  exclusively  university  professors,  in  striking 
contrast  to  France  and  England,  where  many  of  the 
greatest  scholars  have  always  been  outside  of  the  universi- 
ties. But  this  personal  union  has  had  different  effects 
in  the  two  countries.  In  Germany,  the  exultant  respect 
for  scholarship  raised  the  career  of  the  mere  university 
professor;  in  America,  by  the  lack  of  respect  for  scholar- 
ship, the  standing  of  the  individual  scholar  has  on  the 
whole  come  to  be  determined  by  his  administrative  posi- 
tion in  the  universities.  Those  who  have  a  kind  of  per- 
sonal reputation,  independent  of  their  services  to  the 
institutions,  owe  it  as  a  rule  to  extraneous  features.  Per- 
haps they  make  a  practical  discovery,  or  give  eloquent 
popular  lectures,  master  a  picturesque  epigrammatic  style 
or  like  to  write  magazine  articles  in  their  leisure  hours; 
in  a  word,  they  earn  a  reputation  by  their  by-products,  in 
spite  of  their  scholarship. 

Again,  it  would  be  shortsighted  to  isolate  this  feature 
of  public  opinion  from  the  whole  social  physiognomy. 
This  relatively  low  standing  of  the  scholar's  work  very 
naturally  resulted  from  the  whole  make-up  of  public 
opinion.  It  is  certainly  not  a  necessary  part  of  democ- 
racy, but  it  has  been  a  characteristic  element  in  the  de- 
velopment of  American  public  life,  that  every  one  feels 
himself  a  judge  of  everything,  every  one  is  fit  for  every 


S6  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

place,  and  every  one  knows  what  Is  worth  while  in  life. 
There  is  no  one  who  can  appeal  so  little  to  such  a  court 
of  judges  as  the  scholar.  He  has  nothing  to  show. 
Even  the  greatest  scholar  could  not  point  to  a  fair  success, 
when  the  success  is  to  be  measured  in  commercial  terms. 
Any  clever  lawyer  or  skillful  physician  would  greatly  out- 
shine him  —  not  to  speak  of  the  banker  and  the  broker. 
He  cannot  show  his  success  in  that  popularity  of  notoriety 
which  comes  to  the  politician  or  the  literary  man  or  the 
administrator  or  the  athlete.  His  work  interests  a  few 
score  of  colleagues.  Even  the  external  conditions  do  not 
furnish  those  official  labels  by  which  the  high  opinion  of 
the  few  who  know  is  made  widely  visible  to  the  crowd  — 
the  English  knighthood  for  the  leading  scholars,  the 
governmental  decorations  and  titles.  Men  whose  names 
may  be  among  the  noblest  assets  of  the  United  States  in 
future  centuries,  at  a  time  when  the  names  of  the  wheat 
kings  and  railroad  kings  will  be  forgotten,  thus  remain 
negligible  quantities  in  the  public  opinion  of  to-day. 

Hence  the  most  direct  reflection  of  this  public  situation 
in  the  college  life  is  not  the  disrespect  for  high-grade 
class-work,  but,  still  more,  the  unwillingness  of  the  best 
men  to  turn  toward  a  scholarly  career.  It  seems  to  be 
the  unanimous  experience  of  the  faculties  in  all  the  leading 
universities  that  the  men  who  turn  to  the  graduate  school 
represent  a  less  energetic  material  than  the  average  of 
the  senior  class  or  of  the  law  school.  The  finest  men  go 
into  business  and  industry,  law  and  medicine;  and  those 
who  turn  to  the  graduate  schools  of  the  country  to  pursue 


THE  STANDING  OF  SCHOLARSHIP       57 

the  life  of  a  scholar  are,  in  the  majority,  men  without 
initiative  and  ambition,  and  without  promise  for  the  high- 
est kind  of  work.  Of  course,  there  is  no  lack  of  excep- 
tions. There  will  always  be  a  few  men  whose  genius  calls 
them,  who  feel  the  need  of  solving  the  problems  which  are 
before  their  souls,  and  whose  vision  sees  clearly  the  noble 
scholarly  achievement.  But  these  exceptions  are  too  few. 
The  man  with  power  and  ambition  usually  seeks  another 
path,  he  cannot  feel  attracted  to  a  calling  which  finds  so 
little  appreciation  in  the  community,  he  must  instinctively 
feel  as  if  he  were  going  into  a  second-rate  profession  in 
which  no  high  rewards  are  awaiting  him.  And  all  this 
constitutes  a  vicious  circle,  with  the  common  result  that  in 
all  layers  of  society,  with  young  and  old  alike,  scholar- 
ship is  not  acknowledged  as  a  vital  force.  It  has  no 
access  to  the  inner  life  of  men. 

The  world  laughed  when  Heinrich  Heine's  disrespect- 
ful humor  in  the  Harzreise  ridiculed  the  scholarly 
pedantry  of  old  Gottingen.  He  says,  "  Before  the  gate 
of  the  town  I  heard  two  little  schoolboys,  and  the  one 
said  to  the  other,  '  I  no  longer  want  to  have  any  social 
intercourse  with  Theodore.  He  is  a  disgusting  cheap 
fellow.  Yesterday  he  did  not  even  know  the  genitive  of 
mensa.'  "  Yes :  that  sounds  absurd ;  and  yet  there  will 
never  be  really  great  scholarship  in  a  country  where  there 
is  not  sufficient  honor  for  scholarship  to  attract  the  very 
best  men  to  such  a  career;  and  the  adult  men  will  never 
possess  this  high  belief,  unless  the  whole  atmosphere  is 
so  filled  with  it  that  even  the  children  instinctively  feel  it. 


5a  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

Yet  the  fact  that  scholarship  has  no  worthy  standing 
in  the  community  at  large  is  again  not  the  ultimate  source 
of  the  distortion  of  values.  We  must  go  still  further 
to  find  what  is  really  the  last  sociological  cause.  Behind 
all  of  it  stands  a  characteristic  view  of  life,  a  kind  of 
philosophy  which  is  on  the  whole  vaguely  felt,  but  which 
not  seldom  even  comes  to  definite  expression.  Whenever 
it  becomes  shaped  in  such  definite  form,  it  is  proclaimed, 
not  as  a  debatable  proposition,  and  not  as  an  argument 
which  is  upheld  against  any  possible  opposition,  but  it  is 
always  naifvely  presented  as  a  matter-of-course  principle. 
This  naive  philosophizing  crystallizes  about  the  one  idea 
that  the  end  of  all  social  striving  is  to  be  the  happiness 
of  individuals.  Now,  this  is  exactly  the  well-meaning 
philosophy  of  the  eighteenth  century,  the  philosophy  of 
the  rationalists  in  the  period  of  enlightenment.  It  is  a 
philosophy  which  formed  the  background  of  all  the  social 
movements  of  that  important  period,  and  was  therefore 
the  philosophy  out  of  which  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  naturally  arose. 

The  greatest  happiness  of  the  greatest  number  of  in- 
dividuals is  indeed  the  social  ideal  which,  outspoken  or 
not,  controls  the  best  forward  movements  of  the  country. 
It  seems  to  stand  above  the  need  of  any  defense,  as  it 
evidently  raises  itself  high  above  the  low  selfishness  of 
the  masses.  He  who  works  for  the  pleasures  of  millions 
must  be  in  the  right,  because  those  who  think  only  of 
their  own  pleasure  are  certainly  in  the  wrong.  Now,  to 
be  sure,  a  social  body  organized  in  order  to  secure  the 


THE  STANDING  OF  SCHOLARSHIP       59 

maximum  of  happiness  for  its  members  will  have  a  high 
appreciation  of  knowledge.  The  period  of  enlighten- 
ment very  naturally  even  overestimated  the  value  of 
knowledge  as  an  equipment  of  man.  But  knowledge  then 
and  now  was  in  question  only  as  a  tool  for  practical 
achievement.  Such  a  society  will  therefore  work  with  the 
greatest  enthusiasm  for  good  schools  and  widespread  edu- 
cation, and  will  take  care  that  everybody  may  have  the 
opportunity  to  learn  as  much  as  possible,  because  wide 
information  and  acquaintance  with  the  world  must  help 
the  individual  in  his  striving  for  individual  success  and 
satisfaction.  The  splendid  efforts  of  the  American  people 
for  the  raising  and  expanding  of  the  school  system  are 
thus  completely  in  line  with  this  latent  philosophy  of  en- 
lightenment. 

But  the  history  of  civilization  shows  that  such  philos- 
ophy is  by  no  means  a  matter  of  course;  it  is  a  particular 
aspect  seen  from  a  particular  standpoint.  Other  periods, 
other  nations,  have  seen  the  world  from  other  standpoints, 
and  have  emphasized  other  aspects  of  reality.  In  a 
bird's-eye  view  we  see  throughout  the  history  of  mankind 
the  fluctuations  and  alternations  between  positivism  and 
idealism.  The  philosophy  of  enlightenment  is  positivism. 
It  is  true,  in  the  trivial  talk  of  the  street,  we  call  a  man 
an  idealist  if  he  does  not  think  of  his  personal  profit,  but 
of  the  pleasure  of  his  neighbors.  But,  In  a  higher  sense 
of  the  word,  such  unselfish  altruism  does  not  constitute 
an  idealistic  view  of  the  world.  On  the  contrary,  it  may 
have  all  the  earmarks  of  positivism. 


6o  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

We  have  positivism  wherever  the  concrete  experiences 
• —  and  that  means  that  which  "  is  " —  make  up  the  whole 
of  reality.  We  have  idealism  where  the  view  of  the 
world  is  controlled  by  a  belief  in  absolute  values  for  which 
there  Is  no  "  is,"  but  only  an  *'  ought;  "  which  have  not 
the  character  of  concrete  experiences,  but  the  meaning  of 
obligations  which  are  to  be  fulfilled,  not  in  the  interest  of 
Individuals,  but  on  account  of  their  absolute  value.  For 
the  positivist,  knowledge  and  truth  and  beauty  and  prog- 
ress and  morality  have  meaning  merely  in  so  far  as  they 
contribute  to  the  concrete  experiences  of  satisfaction  in 
existing  individuals:  for  the  idealist,  they  represent  ideals 
the  realization  of  which  gives  meaning  to  individual  life, 
but  is  eternally  valuable  independent  of  the  question 
whether  their  fulfillment  contributes  to  the  pleasure  of  in- 
dividuals. From  such  an  idealistic  point  of  view  it  seems 
shallow  and  meaningless  to  see  the  end  of  striving  in  a 
larger  amount  of  Individual  happiness.  The  purpose  of 
man  Is  to  do  his  duty, —  not  to  be  pleased. 

This  is  not  the  place  to  enter  into  a  real  discussion  of 
these  two  types  of  philosophy,  and  to  develop  the  system 
of  eternal  values  as  against  the  relativism  and  pragmatism 
and  utilitarianism  of  the  positlvists.  This  is  not  even 
the  place  to  ask  which  of  the  two  views  of  the  world, 
and  of  human  life,  Is  the  deeper  one  and  the  more  fit  to 
give  account  of  the  reality  in  which  we  live.  Here  we 
have  to  emphasize  only  the  fact  that  this  great  antago- 
nism of  world-views  Is  going  on,  in  order  to  insist  that 
scholarship,  that  is,  the  devotion  to  the  advancement  of 


THE  STANDING  OF  SCHOLARSHIP       6i 

knowledge,  can  find  its  true  appreciation  only  in  a  society 
which  instinctively  believes  in  idealism. 

To  give  at  once  a  historical  background  to  this  contrast, 
we  have  only  to  look  from  the  philosophy  of  the  United 
States  to  the  underlying  world-view  of  the  German  nation. 
Germany  went  through  the  same  Ideas  of  enlightenment  in 
the  eighteenth  century;  then  came  the  great  philosophical- 
literary  uplifting  of  the  national  spirit,  the  period 
of  Schiller  and  Goethe,  of  Kant  and  Fichte  and  Hegel. 
It  was  a  national  reorganization.  In  which  the  idea  of 
the  purpose  of  man  became  thoroughly  revised.  Not  ex- 
perience, but  conviction;  not  the  "Is,"  but  the  "ought," 
became  the  pivot.  This  does  not  mean  that  the  average 
man  read,  or  would  have  understood,  Kant  and  Fichte; 
but  the  Ideas  of  the  great  thinkers  reached  the  entire  na- 
tional life  through  a  thousand  channels,  and  the  whole 
new  German  education  and  organization  of  society  was 
controlled  by  this  idealistic  turn.  Duty  and  discipline 
and  submission  to  an  ideal  of  absolute  value  became  the 
underlying  forces;  and,  however  much  millions  of  selfish 
individuals  may  have  wandered  away  from  the  ideal,  the 
fundamental  direction  of  the  national  energies  had  been 
given. 

The  aim  of  life  then  became  the  realization  of  absolute 
values.  The  Individual  and  the  state  alike  received 
through  this  conviction  their  aim  and  their  meaning;  and 
nothing  else  can  claim  real  dignity  but  that  which  ul- 
timately serves  this  ideal  fulfillment.  In  such  a  philos- 
ophy the  moral  deed  is  not  valuable  because  it  adds  to 


62  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

the  pleasure  of  the  neighbor,  but  because  it  is  eternally 
good;  the  work  of  art  is  valuable,  not  because  it  pleases 
the  senses,  but  because  it  realizes  the  ideal  of  beauty;  the 
world  of  the  market  is  valuable,  not  because  it  satisfies 
individual  needs,  but  because  it  means  a  realization  of 
the  ideal  of  progress ;  the  life  of  the  state  is  valuable,  not 
because  it  secures  the  greatest  happiness  of  its  members, 
but  because  it  is  a  realization  of  the  ideals  of  right,  and 
as  such  of  eternal  value :  and  knowledge,  too,  is  valuable, 
not  because  it  is  a  serviceable  tool  for  the  pleasure  of  in- 
dividuals, but  because  it  is  a  fulfillment  of  the  ideal  of 
truth. 

In  a  society  in  which  this  is  the  instinctive  background 
of  public  feeling,  the  Incomparable  position  of  scholarship 
must  be  secure  from  the  start.  The  scholar,  like  the 
artist  or  the  minister  or  the  statesman,  serves  his  ideal 
with  every  fibre  of  his  life.  Whether  his  knowledge  will 
ever  be  transformed  into  practical  use  for  anything  is  not 
the  question.  That  could  not  add  to  the  worth  and  dig- 
nity of  his  achievement.  All  which  gives  meaning  and 
absolute  value  to  his  creation  is  that  it  serves  the  advance- 
ment of  truth,  that  it  adds  to  the  world's  forward  move- 
ment toward  the  ideal.  The  scholar,  as  productive 
scholar,  therefore  stands  on  a  higher  level  than  he  who 
serves  only  the  happiness  of  individuals.  Where  such  a 
thought,  clearly  expressed  or  vaguely  implied,  stands  in 
the  center  of  national  ideas,  it  must  be  reflected  every- 
where; it  must  give  to  every  effort  toward  knowledge  a 
new  meaning  and  a  new  aspiration.     To  learn  for  truth's 


THE  STANDING  OF  SCHOLARSHIP      63 

sake  then  becomes  a  kind  of  ideal  service ;  and  even  if  it  is 
indeed  only  the  genitive  of  mensa,  it  means  duty. 

Such  an  idealistic  view  of  the  world  may  seem  and  must 
seem  to  many  a  logical  monstrosity.  They  have  their 
skeptical  and  positivistic  and  pragmatic  arguments  on  the 
tip  of  their  tongues.  And  this  antagonism  has  existed  at 
all  times.  There  would  have  been  no  need  for  a  Socrates 
and  a  Plato  and  their  idealism,  if  the  country  had  not 
resounded  with  the  positivism  of  the  old  Sophists.  The 
point  is  only  that  we  must  not  believe  that,  in  a  positivistic, 
utilitarian  society,  we  can  ever  give  that  standing  to 
scholarship  which  it  naturally  has  in  a  society  controlled  by 
philosophical  idealism.  Of  course,  many  would  say  that  a 
change  would  not  be  worth  while  anyhow,  or  that  it  would 
be  too  dearly  bought,  if  we  were  to  get  higher  standing 
for  scholarship  and  government  and  art  by  giving  up  our 
philosophy  of  enlightenment.  But  It  must  be  clear  that 
we  cannot  have  one  without  the  other.  And  at  least  we 
ought  to  give  up  the  superficial  illusion  that  just  such  a 
type  of  positivistic  philosophy  is  the  regulation  equip- 
ment for  a  true  democracy. 

Indeed,  there  Is  no  lack  of  indications  that  American 
life,  too,  is  trying  to  overcome  the  narrowness  of  utilitarian 
philosophy,  and  is  moving  toward  idealistic  ground; 
nothing  seems  to  hold  back  this  progress  so  much  as  the 
Illusion  that  the  greatest  happiness  of  the  individual  is 
the  only  possible  goal  for  a  democracy.  On  the  surface 
it  may  appear  as  if  positivism  has  more  consideration  for 
every  concrete  Individual,  and  is  thus  more  inclined  to 


64  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

award  an  equal  share  of  the  world's  pleasures  to  every 
one.  On  the  other  hand,  idealism,  which  believes  in  the 
value  of  the  whole  as  a  whole,  may  appear  more  inclined 
to  appreciate  the  symbols  which  represent  the  whole,  and 
therefore  to  endorse  the  symbolic  forms  of  the  monarchy. 
In  this  sense  it  was  not  by  chance  that  the  Americans, 
under  the  influence  of  a  positivistic  philosophy  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  founded  a  republic. 

Yet  history  shows  that  utilitarian  motives  have  erected 
monarchies  too,  and  that  true  democracies  have  been 
filled  with  the  spirit  of  idealism.  The  American  attitude 
there  is  controlled  by  nothing  but  tradition.  Their 
democracy  originated  historically  from  a  positivistic  phi- 
losophy which  was  most  suitable  for  a  century  of  pioneer- 
ing and  developing  the  resources  of  the  new  world.  But 
now,  as  times  have  changed,  as  new  aims  and  historic 
purposes  come  into  the  foreground,  the  national  philos- 
ophy too  must  adjust  itself  to  the  new  age;  and  progress 
ought  not  to  be  hampered  by  an  illusory  belief  in  the 
democratic  character  of  utilitarianism.  On  the  contrary, 
if  the  purpose  of  life  is  understood  as  the  realization  of 
ideals,  the  democracy  comes  to  its  highest  meaning. 
Each  man  has  an  ideal  share  in  the  national  duty,  each 
man  equally  should  contribute  his  part  toward  the  realiza- 
tion of  absolute  values,  and  equally  should  submit  his 
individual  desire  for  his  pleasure  and  happiness,  for  his 
individual  fancy  and  opinion,  to  the  service  of  the  ideal 
good. 

There  is  an  abundance  of  factors  which,  even  in  the 


THE  STANDING  OF  SCHOLARSHIP       65 

midst  of  our  utilitarian  life,  point  to  the  necessity  of  this 
inner  change.  For  instance,  it  is  very  curious  to  see  how 
the  technical  complexity  of  our  life  forces  on  individuals 
an  increasing  submission  to  the  judgment  of  the  expert. 
At  first  it  was  only  the  expert  in  engineering  and  sanita- 
tion, slowly  it  has  become  the  expert  in  education,  finally 
it  will  become  the  expert  in  government.  But  whether 
the  positivism  of  the  time  will  be  undermined  by  such 
new  practical  demands,  or  by  new  philosophical  thoughts, 
or  by  a  new  emotional  revival,  in  any  case  indications  are 
abundantly  visible  that  a  change  Is  to  come.  This  great 
new  educational  uprising  against  the  go-as-you-please 
scheme,  and  this  new  cry  for  more  thoroughness  and  dis- 
cipline, for  more  serious  respect  for  scholarship,  are  aftei; 
all  only  symptoms  of  this  great  national  movement.  It  is 
essential  to  recognize  these  connections.  So  long  as  the 
reforms  are  confined  to  our  school  and  our  colleges,  they 
may  Improve  the  situation  but  can  never  be  fundamen- 
tally effective.  The  real  reform  can  come  only  if  it  is 
supported  by  a  corresponding  movement  throughout  the 
national  life. 

As  soon  as  the  nation  feels  that  the  meaning  of  life 
lies,  not  in  the  greatest  pleasure  for  the  greatest  number 
of  individuals,  but  In  the  realization  of  eternal  Ideals,  then, 
as  a  matter  of  course,  school  and  college  and  vocational 
life  will  be  reshaped  and  reorganized.  Then,  on  the 
university  campus,  scholarship  and  athletics  will  no  longer 
be  rivals  which  stand  on  the  same  level:  athletics  will  be 
the  joyful  play  which  gives  pleasure  and  recreation  to 


66  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

individuals,  and  serves  its  purpose  well  if  it  makes  happy 
boys  more  able  to  live  for  their  real  life-tasks;  but  scholar- 
ship will  be  a  service  which  does  not  ask  but  which  finds 
respect  everywhere,  as  it  is  sacred  through  its  own  dignity. 
Service  to  scholarship  will  then  appear  to  every  one  just 
as  valuable  as  honesty  and  morality ;  it  is  an  eternal  reward 
in  itself. 


IV 
PROHIBITION  AND  TEMPERANCE 


IV 

PROHIBITION   AND   TEMPERANCE 

TF  a  German  stands  up  to  talk  about  prohibition,  he 
might  just  as  well  sit  down  at  once,  for  every  one  in 
America,  of  course,  knows  beforehand  what  he  is  going 
to  say.  Worse,  every  one  knows  also  exactly  why  he  is 
so  anxious  to  say  it :  how  can  he  help  being  on  the  wrong 
side  of  this  question?  And  especially  if  he  has  been  a 
student  in  Germany,  he  will  have  brought  the  drinking 
habit  along  with  him  from  the  Fatherland,  together  with 
his  cigar  smoking  and  card  playing  and  duelling.  If  a 
man  relies  on  his  five  quarts  of  heavy  Munich  beer  a  day, 
how  can  he  ever  feel  happy  if  he  is  threatened  with  no 
license  in  his  town  and  with  no  beer  in  his  stein?  Yet 
my  case  seems  slightly  different.  I  never  in  my  life 
played  cards,  I  never  fought  a  duel,  and  when  the  other 
day  in  a  large  women's  college,  after  an  address  and  a 
reception,  the  lady  president  wanted  to  comfort  me  and 
suggested  that  I  go  into  the  next  room  and  smoke  a  cigar, 
I  told  her  frankly  that  I  could  do  it  if  it  were  the  rule  in 
her  college,  but  that  it  would  be  my  first  cigar.  With 
beer  it  is  different.  Last  winter  in  traveling  I  was  for 
some  days  the  guest  of  an  Episcopal  clergyman,  who,  an- 
ticipating the  visit  of  a  German,  had  set  up  a  bottle  of 

69 


70  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

beer  as  a  welcome,  and  we  drank  together  the  larger  part 
of  the  bottle  —  but  I  think  that  Is  my  only  case  in  late 
years.  When  I  had  to  attend  a  Students'  "  Commers," 
I  was  always  protected  by  the  thick  mug  through  which 
no  one  could  discover  that  the  contents  never  became  less 
during  the  evening.  I  live  most  comfortably  in  a  pleas- 
ant temperance  town  which  will,  I  hope,  vote  no-license 
year  by  year  as  long  as  freshmen  stroll  over  the  old  Har- 
vard Yard.  And  although  I  have  become  pretty  much 
Americanized,  I  have  never  drunk  a  cocktail. 

Hence  the  problem  of  prohibition  does  not  affect  my 
thirst,  but  it  greatly  interests  my  scientific  conscience;  not 
as  a  German,  but  as  a  psychologist  I  feel  impelled  to  add 
a  word  to  the  discussion  which  is  suddenly  reverberating 
over  the  whole  country.  But  is  it  really  a  discussion 
which  we  hear?  Is  it  not  rather  a  one-sided  denunciation 
of  alcohol,  repeated  a  million  times  with  louder  and 
louder  voice,  an  outcry  ever  swelling  in  its  vehemence? 
On  the  other  side  there  may  be  the  protests  of  the  dis- 
tillers and  brewers  and  wine-growers  and  bottle-makers 
and  saloon-keepers,  and  perhaps  some  timid  declarations 
of  thirsty  societies  —  but  such  protests  do  not  count,  since 
they  have  all  the  earmarks  of  selfishness;  they  are  ruled 
out,  and  no  one  listens,  just  as  no  one  would  consult  the 
thieves  if  a  new  statute  against  pickpockets  were  planned. 
So  far  as  the  really  disinterested  public  is  concerned,  the 
discussion  Is  essentially  one-sided.  If  serious  men  like 
Cardinal  Gibbons  raise  their  voices  in  a  warning  against 


PROHIBITION  AND  TEMPERANCE       71 

prohibition,  they  are  denounced  and  overborne,  and  no 
one  cares  to  imitate  them. 

It  has  been  seldom  indeed  that  the  fundamental  evil 
of  American  public  opinion  has  come  out  so  clearly; 
namely,  that  no  one  dares  to  be  on  the  unpopular  side; 
just  as  in  fashion  and  social  life,  every  one  wants  to  be 
"  in  it."  No  problem  in  America  has  a  fair  hearing  as 
soon  as  one  side  has  become  the  fashion  of  mind.  Only 
the  cranks  come  out  with  an  unbalanced,  exaggerated  op- 
position and  thus  really  help  the  cause  they  want  to  fight 
against.  The  well-balanced  thinkers  keep  quiet  and 
simply  look  on  while  the  movement  rushes  forward,  wait- 
ing quietly  for  the  reaction  which  sets  in  from  the  inner 
absurdity  of  every  social  extreme.  The  result  is  too  often 
a  zigzag  movement,  where  fearlessness  might  have  found 
a  middle  way  of  steady  progress.  There  must  be  indeed 
a  possible  middle  way  between  the  evil  of  the  present 
saloon  and  the  no  less  evil  of  a  future  national  prohi- 
bition; yet  if  this  one-sidedness  of  discussion  goes  on,  it  is 
not  difficult  to  foresee,  after  the  legislative  experiences 
of  the  last  years,  that  the  hysterical  movement  will  not 
stop  until  prohibition  is  proclaimed  from  every  state-house 
between  the  Atlantic  and  the  Pacific. 

Exaggerated  denunciation  of  the  prohibition  movement 
Is,  of  course,  Ineffective.  Whoever  simply  takes  sides 
with  the  saloon-keeper  and  his  clientele  —  yes,  whoever  is 
blind  to  the  colossal  harm  which  alcohol  has  brought  and 
is  now  bringing  to  the  whole  country  —  Is  unfit  to  be  heard 


72  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

by  those  who  have  the  healthy  and  sound  development  of 
the  nation  at  heart.  The  evils  which  are  connected  with 
the  drinking  habit  are  gigantic;  thousands  of  lives  and 
many  more  thousands  of  households  are  the  victims  every 
year;  disease  and  poverty  and  crime  grow  up  where  alco- 
hol drenches  the  soil.  To  deny  it  means  to  ignore  the 
teachings  of  medicine  and  economics  and  criminology. 

But  is  this  undeniable  fact  really  a  proof  of  the  wisdom 
of  prohibition?  The  railroads  of  the  United  States  in- 
jured last  year  more  than  one  hundred  thousand  persons 
and  put  out  seven  thousand  hopeful  lives;  does  any  sane 
man  argue  that  we  ought  to  abolish  railroads?  The 
stock  exchange  has  brought  recently,  economic  misery 
to  uncounted  homes,  but  even  at  the  height  of  the  panic 
no  one  wanted  to  destroy  the  market  for  industrial  stocks. 
To  say  that  certain  evils  come  from  a  certain  source  sug- 
gests only  to  fools  the  hasty  annihilation  of  the  source  be- 
fore studying  whether  greater  evils  might  not  result  from 
its  destruction,  and  without  asking  whether  the  evils  might 
not  be  reduced,  and  the  good  from  the  same  source  re- 
main untouched  and  untampered  with.  Even  if  a  hollow 
tooth  aches,  the  modern  dentist  does  not  think  of  pulling 
it;  that  would  be  the  remedy  of  the  clumsy  village  bar- 
ber. The  evils  of  drink  exist,  and  to  neglect  their  cure 
would  be  criminal,  but  to  rush  on  to  the  conclusion  that 
every  vineyard  ought  therefore  to  be  devastated  is  un- 
worthy of  the  logic  of  a  self-governing  nation.  The  other 
side  has  first  to  show  Its  case. 

This  does  not  mean  that  every  argument  of  the  other 


PROHIBITION  AND  TEMPERANCE       73 

side  is  valid.  In  most  of  the  public  protestations,  es- 
pecially from  the  Middle  West,  far  too  much  is  made  of 
the  claim  that  all  the  Puritanic  laws  and  the  whole  pro- 
hibitionist movement  are  an  interference  with  personal  lib- 
erty. It  is  an  old  argument,  indeed,  "  Better  England 
free  than  England  sober."  For  public  meetings  it  is  just 
the  kind  of  protest  which  resounds  well  and  rolls  on 
nobly.  We  are  at  once  in  the  midst  of  the  "  most  sacred  " 
rights.  Who  desires  that  America,  the  idol  of  those  who 
seek  freedom  from  the  tyranny  of  the  Old  World,  shall 
trample  on  the  right  of  personal  liberty?  And  yet  those 
hundreds  of  singing-societies  which  have  joined  in  this 
outburst  of  moral  indignation  have  forgotten  that  every 
law  is  a  limitation  of  personal  liberty.  The  demand  of 
the  nation  must  limit  the  demands  of  the  individual,  even 
if  it  is  not  the  neighbor,  but  the  actor  himself  who  is 
directly  hurt.  No  one  wants  to  see  the  lottery  or  gam- 
bling-houses or  the  free  sale  of  morphine  and  cocaine 
permitted,  or  slavery,  even  though  a  man  were  to  offer 
himself  for  sale,  or  polygamy,  even  though  all  wives 
should  consent.  To  prevent  temptation  toward  ruinous 
activities  is  truly  the  State's  best  right,  and  no  injury  to 
personal  liberty.  The  German  reflects  gladly  how  much 
more  the  German  State  apparently  intrudes  upon  personal 
freedom:  for  instance,  in  its  splendid  State  insurance  for 
old  age  and  accidents. 

To  be  sure,  from  this  German  viewpoint  It  is  hard  to 
understand  why  the  right  of  the  State  to  subordinate  per- 
sonal wishes  to  national  ones  should  not  carry  with  it  a 


74  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

duty  to  make  compensation.  To  him  the  actions  of  some 
Southern  States  appear  simply  as  the  confiscation  of  prop- 
erty. When,  as  has  happened,  a  captain  of  industry 
erects  a  most  costly  brewery,  and  the  State  in  the  follow- 
ing year  prohibits  the  sale  of  beer,  turning  the  large,  new 
establishment  into  a  huge,  useless  ruin,  without  giving  the 
slightest  compensation,  the  foreigner  stands  aghast,  won- 
dering if  to-morrow  a  party  which  believes  in  the  State 
ownership  of  railroads  may  not  prohibit  railroading  by 
private  companies  without  any  payment  to  the  present 
owners. 

Yet  the  political  aspect  does  not  concern  the  social 
psychologist.  I  abstract  from  it  as  from  many  others. 
There  is,  indeed,  no  limit  to  the  problems  which  ought 
to  be  studied  most  seriously  before  such  a  gigantic  revolu- 
tion is  organized.  The  physician  may  ask  whether  and 
when  alcohol  is  real  medicine,  and  the  physiologist  may 
study  whether  it  Is  a  food  and  whether  it  is  rightly  taken 
as  helpful  to  nutrition;  but  this  is  not  our  problem.  The 
theologians  may  quarrel  as  to  whether  the  Bible  praises 
the  wine  or  condemns  the  drinker,  whether  Christ  really 
turned  water  into  that  which  we  call  wine,  and  whether 
Christianity  as  such  stands  for  abstinence.  It  is  matter 
for  the  economist  to  ask  what  will  become  of  the  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  men  who  are  working  to-day  in  the  brew- 
eries and  related  Industries.  A  labor  union  claims  that 
"  over  half  a  million  men  would  be  thrown  out  of  employ- 
ment by  general  prohibition,  who,  with  their  families, 
would  make  an  army  of  a  million  human  beings  robbed  of 


PROHIBITION  AND  TEMPERANCE       75 

their  means  of  existence."  And  the  economist,  again, 
may  consider  what  it  might  mean  to  take  out  the  license 
taxes  from  the  city  budgets  and  the  hundreds  of  millions 
of  internal  revenue  from  the  budget  of  the  whole  country. 
It  is  claimed  that  the  breweries,  maltsters,  and  distillers 
pay  out  for  natural  and  manufactured  products,  for  labor, 
transportation,  etc.,  seven  hundred  million  dollars  an- 
nually; that  their  aggregate  investments  foot  up  to  more 
than  three  thousand  millions;  and  that  their  taxes  con- 
tribute three  hundred  and  fifty  millions  every  year  to  the 
public  treasuries.  Can  the  country  afford  to  ruin  an  in- 
dustry of  such  magnitude?  Such  weighty  problems  can- 
not be  solved  in  the  Carrie  Nation  style:  yet  they  are 
not  ours  here. 

Nearer  to  our  psychological  Interest  comes  the  well- 
known  war-cry,  "  Prohibition  does  not  prohibit."  It  is 
too  late  in  the  day  to  need  to  prove  it  by  statistics :  every 
one  knows  it.  No  one  has  traveled  in  prohibition  States 
without  seeing  the  sickening  sight  of  drunkards  of  the 
worst  order.  The  drug-stores  are  turned  into  very  re- 
munerative bars,  and  through  hidden  channels  whiskey  and 
gin  flood  the  community.  The  figures  of  the  United  States 
Commissioner  of  Internal  Revenue  tell  the  story  pub- 
licly. In  a  license  State  like  Massachusetts,  there  exists 
one  retail  liquor  dealer  for  every  525  of  population;  in  a 
prohibition  State  like  Kansas,  one  for  every  366.  But 
the  secret  story  is  much  more  alarming.  What  is  the 
effect?  As  far  as  the  health  of  the  nation  and  its  mental 
training  in  self-control  and  in  regulation  of  desires  are 


^6  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

concerned,  the  result  must  be  dangerous,  because,  on  the 
whole,  it  eliminates  the  mild  beverages  in  favor  of  the 
strong  drinks  and  substitutes  lonely  drinking  for  drink- 
ing in  social  company.  Both  are  psychologically  and 
physiologically  a  turn  to  the  worse.  It  is  not  the  mild 
beer  and  light  wine  which  are  secretly  imported;  it  is 
much  easier  to  transport  and  hide  whiskey  and  rum,  with 
their  strong  alcoholic  power  and  stronger  effect  on  the 
nerve-cells  of  the  brain.  And  of  all  forms  of  drinking 
none  is  more  ruinous  than  the  solitary  drink,  as  soon  as 
the  feeling  of  repugnance  has  been  overcome;  there  is 
no  limit  and  no  inhibition.  If  I  look  back  over  the  last 
years,  in  which  I  often  studied  the  effects  of  suggestion 
and  hypnotism  on  habitual  drinkers,  I  do  not  hesitate  to 
say  that  it  was  in  most  cases  easier  to  cure  the  social 
drinker  of  the  large  cities,  than  to  break  the  lonely  drinker 
of  the  temperance  town.  Of  course,  prohibition  reduces 
somewhat  the  whole  quantity  of  consumption,  but  it  with- 
draws the  stimulant,  in  most  cases,  where  it  would  do  the 
least  harm  and  intensifies  the  harm  to  the  organism  where 
it  is  most  dangerous. 

But  man  is  not  only  a  nervous  system.  Prohibition 
forced  by  a  majority  on  an  unwilling  minority  will  always 
remain  a  living  source  of  the  spirit  of  disregard  for  law. 
Yet,  "unwilling"  minority  is  too  weak  an  epithet;  the 
question  is  of  a  minority  which  considers  the  arbitrary  rule 
undemocratic,  absurd,  immoral,  and  which  really  believes 
that  it  is  justified  in  finding  a  secret  way  around  a  con- 
temptible law. 


PROHIBITION  AND  TEMPERANCE       77 

Judges  know  how  rapidly  the  value  of  the  oath  sinks 
in  courts  where  violation  of  the  prohibition  laws  is  a  fre- 
quent charge,  and  how  habitual  perjury  becomes  tolerated 
by  respected  people.  The  city  politicians  know  still  bet- 
ter how  closely  blackmail  and  corruption  hang  together,  in 
the  social  psychology,  with  the  enforcement  of  laws  that 
strike  against  the  beliefs  and  traditions  of  wider  circles. 
The  public  service  becomes  degraded,  the  public  con- 
science becomes  dulled.  And  can  there  be  any  doubt 
that  disregard  of  law  is  the  most  dangerous  psychological 
factor  in  our  present-day  American  civilization?  It  is 
not  lynch  law  which  is  the  worst;  the  crimes  against  life 
are  twenty  times  more  frequent  than  in  Europe,  and  as 
for  the  evils  of  commercial  life  which  have  raised  the 
wrath  of  the  whole  well-meaning  nation  in  late  years,  has 
not  disregard  of  law  been  their  real  source  ?  In  a  popular 
melodrama  the  sheriff  says  solemnly:  "I  stand  here  for 
the  law  ";  and  when  the  other  shouts  in  reply,  "  I  stand 
for  common  sense !  "  night  after  night  the  public  breaks 
out  into  jubilant  applause.  To  foster  this  immoral  negli- 
gence of  law  by  fabricating  hasty,  ill-considered  laws  in 
a  hysterical  mood,  laws  which  almost  tempt  toward  a 
training  in  violation  of  them,  is  surely  a  dangerous  experi- 
ment in  social  psychology. 

Hasty  indeed  is  that  kind  of  law-making.  Within  a 
few  years,  during  which  the  situation  itself  has  not  been 
changed,  during  which  no  new  discoveries  have  proved  the 
right  or  necessity,  during  which  no  experts  have  reached 
common  results,  the  wave  has  swollen  to  a  devastating 


78  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

flood.  Who  let  it  loose?  Were  the  psychologists  asked 
to  decide,  or  the  physicians,  or  the  physiologists,  or  the 
sociologists,  or  any  one  who  has  studied  the  problem  as  a 
whole  with  professional  knowledge  ?  Certainly  not :  their 
commissions  have  hardly  ever  proposed  total  abstinence. 
Of  course,  those  who  rush  on  mean  the  best  as  they  see 
it;  they  want  to  make  better  men;  but  can  a  nation  ever 
hope  to  reach  private  morality  by  law  and  thus  to  exclude 
all  private  lying  and  greediness  and  envy  and  ingratitude 
and  temper  and  unfairness  just  as  well  as  intemperance? 
Such  vague  mixing  of  purposes  always  characterizes  super- 
ficial legislation.  A  sober  contemplator  must  ask  himself : 
What  is  it  to  lead  to  if  well-meaning,  short-sighted  dilet- 
tantes can  force  legislation  on  questions  which  demand  the 
most  serious  expert  study  ? 

There  is  growing  throughout  the  land  to-day  a  con- 
viction—  which  has  its  core  of  truth  —  that  many  peo- 
ple eat  too  much  meat;  and  not  a  few  see  a  remedy  in 
vegetarianism  and  Fletcherism.  If  this  prejudice  swells 
in  a  similar  way,  the  time  may  come  when  one  State  after 
the  other  will  declare  slaughtering  illegal,  confiscate  the 
meat-packing  houses,  and  prohibit  the  poisonous  consump- 
tion of  beef  and  the  killing  of  any  creature  that  can  look 
on  us  with  eyes.  Other  groups  are  fighting  coffee  and 
tea,  and  we  may  finally  land  in  nuts  and  salads.  Yes,  ac- 
cording to  this  line  of  legislative  wisdom,  there  is  no 
reason  for  prohibiting  only  alcohol.  Do  I  go  far  beyond 
the  facts  in  asserting  that  in  certain  States  the  same 
women  and  men  who  are  publicly  against  every  use  of 


PROHIBITION  AND  TEMPERANCE       79 

alcohol  are  also  opposed  to  the  "  drugs  "  of  the  physi- 
cians and  speak  of  them  privately  as  poisons?  Not  the 
Christian  Scientists  only  —  in  intellectual  Boston  thou- 
sands of  educated  women  speak  of  drugs  and  nervine  as 
belonging  to  a  medieval  civilization  which  they  have  out- 
grown. The  same  national  logic  may  thus  lead  us  to  laws 
which  will  prohibit  every  physician  from  using  the  re- 
sources of  the  drug-store  —  unless  they  are  all  compelled 
to  go  over  to  osteopathy. 

The  question  of  the  liquor  trade  and  temperance  — 
which  is  so  widely  different  from  a  hasty  prohibition  — 
has  engaged  the  minds  of  all  times  and  of  all  nations,  and 
is  studied  everywhere  to-day  with  the  means  of  modern 
science.  But  this  spring  flood  of  prohibition  legislation 
which  has  overrun  the  States  shows  few  signs  of  deeper 
connection  with  serious  study  and  fewer  signs  of  profit 
from  the  experiments  of  the  past.  When  the  Chinese 
government  made  laws  against  intemperance  about  eleven 
hundred  years  before  Christ,  it  can  hardly  have  gone  more 
hastily  to  work  than  the  members  of  this  movement  of  the 
twentieth  century  after  Christ.  It  Is  unworthy  of  women 
and  men  who  want  to  stand  for  sobriety  to  allow  them- 
selves to  become  intoxicated  with  hysterical  outcries,  when 
a  gigantic  national  question  Is  to  be  solved,  a  question 
which  can  never  be  solved  until  It  Is  solved  rightly.  A 
wrong  decision  must  necessarily  lead  to  a  social  reaction 
which  can  easily  wipe  out  every  previous  gain. 

Progress  Is  to  be  hoped  for  only  from  the  most  care- 
ful analysis  of  all  the  factors  of  this  problem ;  yet,  instead, 


8o  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

the  nation  leaves  it  to  the  unthinking,  emotional  part  of  the 
population.  In  the  years  of  the  silver  agitation  the 
wonderful  seriousness  with  which  large  crowds  listened  in 
a  hundred  towns,  evening  after  evening,  to  long  hours  of 
difficult  technical  discussion  on  currency  was  a  matter 
of  admiration  to  any  foreigner.  Sixteen  to  one  was  really 
discussed  by  the  whole  nation,  and  arguments  were  arrayed 
against  arguments  before  a  decision  was  reached.  Is  it 
necessary  that  the  opposite  method  be  taken  as  soon  as  this 
problem  is  touched  —  a  question  far  more  complex  and 
difficult  than  the  silver  question,  and  of  far  more  import 
to  the  moral  habits  and  the  development  of  the  nation? 
When  leading  scholars  bring  real  arguments  on  both  sides 
of  the  problem,  their  work  is  buried  in  archives,  and  no 
one  is  moved  to  action.  But  when  a  Chicago  minister 
hangs  the  American  flag  over  his  pulpit,  fastens  a  large 
patch  of  black  color  on  it,  declares  that  the  patch  stands 
for  the  liquor  evil  which  smirches  the  country,  denounces 
wildly  the  men  who  spend  for  whiskey  the  money  which 
ought  to  buy  medicine  for  sick  children,  and  then  madly 
tears  the  black  cloth  from  the  stars  and  stripes  and  grinds 
it  under  his  heel  —  then  thousands  rush  out  as  excited  as 
if  they  had  heard  a  convincing  argument.  And  this  super- 
ficiality is  the  more  repellant  because  every  glimpse  be- 
low the  surface  shows  an  abundance  of  cant  and  hypocrisy 
and  search  for  cheap  fame  and  sensationalism  and  still 
more  selfish  motives  mingled  with  the  whole  movement; 
even  the  agitation  itself,  with  its  threats  of  ruin,  borders 


PROHIBITION  AND  TEMPERANCE       8i 

too  often  on  graft  and  blackmail  and  thus  helps  to  de- 
bauch the  public  life. 

Those  who  seriously  study,  not  merely  one  or  another 
symptom,  but  the  whole  situation,  can  hardly  doubt 
that  the  demand  of  true  civilization  is  for  temperance  and 
not  for  abstinence,  and  that  complete  prohibition  must  in 
the  long  run  work  against  real  temperance.  But  nothing 
is  more  characteristic  of  the  caprice  of  the  masses  than  the 
constant  neglect  of  this  distinction.  Even  the  smallest 
dose  of  alcohol  is  for  them  nothing  but  evil,  and  trium- 
phantly they  seize  on  isolated  statements  of  physiologists 
who  acknowledge  that  every  dose  of  alcohol  has  a  cer- 
tain influence  on  the  brain.  This  is  at  once  given  the 
turn  that  every  glass  of  beer  or  wine  "  muddles  "  the  brain 
and  is  therefore  a  sin  against  the  freedom  of  man. 

Certainly  every  glass  of  beer  has  an  influence  on  the 
cells  of  the  brain  and  on  the  mind;  so  has  every  cup  of 
tea  or  coffee,  every  bit  of  work  and  every  amusement,  every 
printed  page  and  every  spoken  word.  Is  it  certain  that  the 
influence  is  harmful  because  an  overdose  of  the  same  stim- 
ulants is  surely  poisonous  ?  To  climb  Mount  Blanc  would 
overtax  my  heart:  is  it  therefore  inadvisable  for  me  to 
climb  the  two  flights  to  my  laboratory?  Of  course,  under 
certain  conditions  it  might  be  wise  to  take  account  of  the 
slightest  influences.  Without  being  harmful,  they  might 
be  unsuited  to  a  certain  mental  purpose.  If  I  were  to 
take  a  glass  of  beer  now  in  the  morning,  I  should  cer- 
tainly be  unable  to  write  the  next  page  of  this  essay  with 


82  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

the  same  case;  the  ideas  would  flow  more  slowly.  But 
does  that  indicate  that  I  did  wrong  in  taking  last  night, 
after  a  hard  day's  fatiguing  work,  a  glass  of  sherry  and  a 
glass  of  champagne  at  a  merry  dinner-party,  after  which 
nothing  but  light  conversation  and  music  were  planned  for 
the  rest  of  the  evening?  Of  course,  alcohol  before  seri- 
ous intellectual  work  disturbs  me;  but  hearing  a  hurdy- 
gurdy  in  the  street  or  thinking  of  the  happy  news  which  a 
letter  has  just  brought  to  me,  or  feeling  angry  over  any 
incident,  disturbs  me  just  as  much.  It  is  all  the  same  kind 
of  interference;  the  brain  centers  which  I  used  for  my  in- 
tellectual effort  are  for  a  while  inhibited  and  thus  unfit  for 
the  work  which  I  have  in  hand.  When  the  slight  anger 
has  evaporated,  when  the  pleasurable  excitement  has  sub- 
sided, when  the  music  is  over,  I  can  gather  my  thoughts 
again,  and  it  is  arbitrary  to  claim  that  the  short  blockade 
of  ideas  was  dangerous,  and  that  I  ought  to  have  avoided 
the  music  or  the  pleasure  or  the  wine. 

Of  course,  if  we  consider,  for  instance,  the  prevention 
of  crime,  we  ought  not  to  forget  that  some  even  of  these 
slight  inhibitions  may  facilitate  a  rash,  vehement  deed  and 
check  cool  deliberation.  In  times  of  social  excitement, 
therefore,  alcohol  ought  to  be  reduced.  But  again  this 
same  effect,  as  far  as  the  temperate  use  of  alcohol  is  in 
question,  may  result  from  many  other  sources  of  social  un- 
rest. The  real  danger  begins  everywhere  with  intem- 
perance :  that  is,  with  a  lack  of  that  self-discipline  which  is 
not  learned  but  lost  under  the  outer  force  of  prohibition. 

Psychologically  the  case  stands  thus :  alcohol  has  indeed 


PROHIBITION  AND  TEMPERANCE       83 

an  inhibitory  influence  on  mind  and  body.  The  feeling  of 
excitement,  the  greater  ease  of  motor  impulse,  the  feeling 
of  strength  and  joy,  the  forgetting  of  sorrow  and  pain  — 
all  are  at  bottom  the  result  of  inhibition;  impulses  are 
let  free  because  the  checking  centers  are  inhibited.  But 
it  is  absurd  to  claim  from  the  start  that  all  this  is  bad  and 
harmful,  as  if  the  word  inhibition  meant  destruction  and 
lasting  damage.  Harmful  it  is,  bodily  and  socially,  when 
these  changes  become  exaggerated,  when  they  are  pro- 
jected into  such  dimensions  that  vital  interests,  the  care  for 
family  and  honor  and  duty  are  paralyzed;  but  in  the  in- 
hibition itself  lies  no  danger.  There  is  not  the  slightest 
act  of  attention  which  does  not  involve  such  inhibition.  If 
I  read  in  my  study,  the  mere  attention  to  my  book  will  in- 
hibit the  ticking  of  the  clock  in  my  room  and  the  noise 
from  the  street,  and  no  one  will  call  it  harmful.  As  soon 
as  my  attention  increases,  and  I  read  with  such  passion  that 
I  forget  my  engagements  with  friends  and  my  duties  in  my 
office,  I  become  ridiculous  and  contemptible.  But  the  fact 
that  the  unbalanced  attention  makes  me  by  its  exagger- 
ated inhibition  quite  unfit  for  my  duties,  is  no  proof  that 
the  slight  inhibition  produced  by  attentive  reading  ought 
to  be  avoided. 

The  inhibition  by  alcohol,  too,  may  have  in  the  right 
place  its  very  desirable  purpose,  and  no  one  ought  to  be 
terrified  by  such  physiological  statements,  even  if  inhibi- 
tion is  called  a  partial  paralysis.  Yes,  it  is  partial 
paralysis,  but  no  education,  no  art,  no  politics,  no  re- 
ligion, is    possible  without  such  partial  paralysis.     What 


84  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

else  arc  hope  and  belief  and  enjoyment  and  enthusiasm 
but  a  re-enforcement  of  certain  mental  states,  with  cor- 
responding inhibition  —  that  is,  paralysis  —  of  the  op- 
posite Ideas?  If  a  moderate  use  of  alcohol  can  help 
in  this  most  useful  blockade,  it  Is  an  ally  and  not  an 
enemy.  If  wine  can  overcome  and  suppress  the  con- 
sciousness of  the  little  miseries  and  of  the  drudgery  of 
life,  and  thus  set  free  and  re-enforce  the  uncheclced  en- 
thusiasm for  the  dominant  Ideas,  If  wine  can  make  one 
forget  the  frictions  and  pains  and  give  again  the  feeling 
of  unity  and  frictionless  power  —  by  all  means  let  us  use 
this  helper  to  civilization.  It  was  a  well-known  philoso- 
pher who  coupled  Christianity  and  alcohol  as  the  two 
great  means  of  mankind  to  set  us  free  from  pain.  But 
nature  provided  mankind  with  other  means  of  inhibition; 
sleep  Is  still  more  radical,  and  every  fatigue  works  in  the 
same  direction;  to  inhibit  means  to  help  and  to  prepare 
for  action. 

And  are  those  who  fancy  that  every  brain  alteration  Is 
an  evil  really  aware  how  other  influences  of  our  civiliza- 
tion hammer  on  the  neurons  and  injure  our  mental  pow- 
ers far  beyond  the  effects  of  a  moderate  use  of  alcohol? 
The  vulgar  rag-time  music,  the  gambling  of  the  specula- 
tors, the  sensationalism  of  the  yellow  press,  the  poker 
playing  of  the  men  and  the  bridge  playing  of  the  women, 
the  mysticism  and  superstition  of  the  new  fancy  churches, 
the  hysterics  of  the  baseball  games,  the  fascination  of 
murder  cases,  the  noise  on  the  Fourth  of  July  and  on  the 
three  hundred  and  sixty-four  other  days  of  the  year,  the 


PROHIBITION  AND  TEMPERANCE       85 

wild  chase  for  success;  all  are  poison  for  the  brain  and 
mind.  They  make  the  nervous  system  and  the  will  end- 
lessly more  unfit  for  the  duties  of  the  day  than  a  glass  of 
lager  beer  on  a  hot  summer's  evening. 

What  would  result  if  prohibition  should  really  pro- 
hibit, and  all  the  inhibitions  which  a  mild  use  of  beer 
and  wine  promise  to  the  brain  really  be  lost?  The  psy- 
chological outcome  would  be  twofold:  certain  effects  of 
alcohol  which  serve  civilization  would  be  lost;  and,  on 
the  other  hand,  harmful  substitutions  would  set  in.  To 
begin  with:  the  nation  would  lose  its  chief  means  of 
recreation  after  work.  We  know  to-day  too  well  that 
physical  exercise  and  sport  Is  not  real  rest  for  the  ex- 
hausted brain-cells.  The  American  masses  work  hard 
throughout  the  day.  The  sharp  physical  and  mental 
labor,  the  constant  hurry  and  drudgery  produce  a  state 
of  tension  and  irritation  which  demands  before  the  night's 
sleep  some  dulling  inhibition  if  a  dangerous  unrest  is  not 
to  set  in.  Alcohol  relieves  that  daily  tension  most  di- 
rectly. 

Perhaps  no  less  Important  would  be  the  loss  on  the 
emotional  side,  at  least  for  the  brain  of  man.  The 
woman's  more  responsive  psychological  constitution  does 
not  need  such  artificial  paralysis  of  the  inhibiting  centers. 
The  mind  of  the  average  woman  shows  by  nature  that 
lower  degree  of  checking  power  which  small  alcoholic 
doses  produce  in  the  average  man.  Without  the  artificial 
Inhibition  of  the  restraining  centers  the  life  of  most 
men  becomes   a  matter   of  mere  business,   of   practical 


8^  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

calculation  and  prosaic  dullness.  The  assthetic  side  of 
life  cannot  come  to  any  development  because  it  is  sup- 
pressed by  the  practical  cares.  The  truly  artistic  mind, 
of  course,  does  not  need  such  artificial  help.  The  finest 
enjoyment  of  art,  of  literature  and  of  music  demands  a 
mind  in  which  the  suggestion  of  beauty  suppresses  by  it- 
self all  selfish  and  practical  ideas.  But  the  mass  of  man- 
kind is  differently  organized.  They  need  some  kind  of 
help  to  open  their  minds  to  the  message  of  the  unprac- 
tical and  unselfish.  Without  such  help  their  instinct 
would  lead  them  only  to  trivial  and  vulgar  amusements. 
Truly  the  German,  the  Frenchman,  the  Italian,  who  en- 
joys his  glass  of  light  wine  and  then  joyful  and  elated 
makes  his  pilgrimage  to  the  masterpieces  of  the  opera 
serves  humanity  better  than  the  New  Englander  who 
drinks  his  icewater  and  then  sits  satisfied  at  the  vaudeville 
show,  world-far  from  real  art.  Better  America  inspired 
than  America  sober,  if  soberness  is  to  mean  absolute  ab- 
staining! In  the  middle  way  between  this  kind  of  so- 
briety and  intemperance  lies  that  emotional  stimulation 
which  for  the  hard-working  masses  is  an  element  of  true 
civilization.  Can  we  forget  that  in  almost  all  parts  of 
the  globe  even  religious  life  began  with  cults  of  such 
artificial  inspiration  ?  For  the  Hindus  the  god  Indra  was 
in  the  wine,  and  for  the  Greeks  Dionysius.  It  is  the 
optimistic  exuberance  of  life,  the  emotional  inspiration 
which  alcohol  has  brought  into  the  dullness  of  human 
days,  and  the  history  of  culture  shows  on  every  page  the 
high  values  which  have  resulted  from  it. 


PROHIBITION  AND  TEMPERANCE       87 

But  with  the  emotion  the  will  dries  up.  The  Ameri- 
can nation  would  never  have  achieved  its  world  work 
if  the  attitude  of  resignation  had  been  its  national  trait. 
Those  pioneers  who  opened  the  land  and  awoke  to  life 
its  resources  were  men  who  longed  for  excitement,  for 
the  intensity  of  life,  for  vivid  experience.  The  nation 
would  not  be  loyal  to  its  tradition  if  it  were  not  to  foster 
this  desire  for  intense  experience.  The  moderate  use  of 
alcohol  is  both  training  in  such  Intensified  conscious  ex- 
perience and  training  in  the  control  and  discipline  of  such 
states.  As  a  child  learns  to  prepare  for  the  work  of  life 
by  plays  and  games,  so  man  is  schooling  himself  for  the 
active  and  effective  life  by  the  temperate  use  of  exciting 
beverages  which  playlike  awake  those  vivid  feelings  of 
success.  The  scholar  and  the  minister  and  thousands 
of  other  individuals  may  not  need  this  training,  but  the 
millions  may  best  prepare  themselves  for  a  national 
career  of  effectiveness,  If  this  opportunity  is  not  taken 
from  their  lives.     History  demonstrates  this  abundantly. 

To  be  sure  all  this  is  but  half  true,  because  as  we  said 
the  individual  and  finally  the  nation  may  find  substitutes, 
may  satisfy  the  craving  for  emotional  excitement,  for  will 
elation,  for  intense  experience  by  other  means.  Gamb- 
ling and  betting,  mysticism  and  superstition,  recklessness 
and  adventurousness,  sexual  over-indulgence  and  per- 
version, brutality  and  crime,  divorce  and  vulgar  amuse- 
ments, have  always  been  the  psychological  means  of  over- 
coming the  emptiness  and  monotony  of  an  unstimulated 
life.     Like  alcohol  they  produce   that  partial  paralysis 


88  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

and  create  intense  experiences.  As  long  as  the  social 
mind  is  not  entirely  dried  up,  they  take  hold  of  the 
masses  with  the  necessity  of  a  psychological  law. 

Has  not  history  experimented  sufficiently?  Prohi- 
bitionist stump  speakers  may  tell  us  that  their  cause  means 
the  hitherto  unheard-of  progress  of  civilization;  the 
United  States,  after  abolishing  slavery  for  mankind,  is 
called  on  to  end  also  the  tyranny  of  alcohol  under  which 
humanity  has  suffered  for  ages.  But  are  there  not  two 
hundred  millions  of  Moslems  who  are  obedient  to  Mo- 
hammed's law,  that  wine  drinking  is  sinful?  What  is  the 
outcome?  Of  course,  it  is  not  inspiring  to  hear  the  boast 
of  the  Moslems  that  the  Christians  bring  whiskey  to 
Africa  and  bestialize  the  natives,  while  the  Mohamme- 
dans fight  alcohol.  But  aside  from  this,  their  life  goes 
on  in  slavery  and  polygamy  and  semi-civilization.  All 
the  strong  nations,  all  those  whose  contributions  have  been 
of  lasting  value  to  the  progress  of  mankind,  have  profited 
from  the  help  of  artificial  stimulation  and  intoxicants. 

But  every  strong  nation  also  remained  conscious  of  the 
dangers  and  evils  which  result  from  intemperance.  On 
the  whole,  history  shows  that  intemperance  and  abstinence 
alike  work  against  the  highest  interests  of  civilization; 
temperance  alone  offers  the  most  favorable  psycho- 
logical conditions  for  the  highest  cultural  achieve- 
ment. Intemperance  mostly  precedes  the  strongest 
periods  in  the  life  of  a  nation  and  follows  them  again  as 
soon  as  decay  has  set  in.  Temperance,  that  is,  sufficient 
use  of  irttoxicants  to  secure  emotional  inspiration  and  vo- 


PROHIBITION  AND  TEMPERANCE       89 

litional  intensity,  together  with  sufficient  training  in  self- 
discipline  to  avoid  their  evils,  always  introduced  the  fullest 
blossoming  of  national  greatness.  Instinctively  the  Ameri- 
can nation  as  a  whole  is  evidently  striving  for  such  tem- 
perance, but  a  hysterical  minority  has  at  present  succeeded 
in  exaggerating  the  movement  and  in  transforming  it  into 
its  caricature,  prohibition.  The  final  result,  of  course, 
will  be  temperance,  since  the  American  nation  will  not 
ultimately  allow  itself  to  become  an  emasculated  nation  of 
dyspeptic  ice-water  drinkers  without  inspiration  and  en- 
ergy, or  permit  vulgar  amusements,  reckless  stockgam- 
bling,  sensationalism,  adultery,  burglary,  and  murder  to 
furnish  the  excitement  which  the  nerves  of  a  healthy  nation 
need. 

How  temperance  can  be  secured,  the  experiences  of  the 
older  nations  with  a  similar  psychological  type  of  national 
mind  ought  to  decide.  First  of  all,  the  beverages  of 
strongly  alcoholic  nature  ought  to  be  fought  by  those  of 
light  alcoholic  effect.  The  whiskey  of  the  laborers  must 
be  fought  by  light  healthful  beer  and  perhaps  by  light 
American  wines.  Further,  a  systematic  education  in 
self-control  must  set  in ;  the  drunkard  must  not  be  tolerated 
under  any  circumstances.  Above  all,  the  social  habits 
in  the  sphere  of  drinking  must  be  entirely  reshaped. 
They  belong  to  a  period  where  the  Puritan  spirit  con- 
sidered beer  and  wine  as  sinful  and  relegated  them  to 
regions  hidden  from  decent  eyes.  The  American  saloon 
is  the  most  disgusting  product  of  such  narrowness;  its 
dangers  for  politics  and  law,  health  and  economics,  are 


90  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

alarming.     The  saloon  must  disappear  and  can  be  made 
to  disappear  perhaps  by  higher  license  taxation  and  many 
other  means.     And  with  it  must  disappear  the  bar  and 
the  habit  of  drinking  standing  and  of  mutual  treating. 
The  restaurant  alone,  with  the  hotel  and  the  club,  is  the 
fit  public  place  where  guests  sitting  at  tables  may  have 
beer  and  wine  with  their  meals  or  after  meals, —  and  all 
controlled  by  laws  which  absolutely  forbid  the  sale  of 
Intoxicants  to  certain  groups  of  persons,  to  children,  to 
inebriates,  and  so  on.     As  long  as  drinking  means  to  the 
Imagination  of  a  considerable  well-meaning  minority  of 
the  nation  the  present-day  repulsive  life  of  saloons  and 
bars,  the  minority  will  find  it  easy  to  terrorize  and  to  whip 
into  line  the  whole  country.     But  if  those  relics  of  a 
narrow  time  disappear  and  customs  grow  which  spread 
the  spirit  of  geniality  and  friendly  social  intercourse  over 
the  foaming  cup,  the  spell  will  be  broken.     Instead  of 
being  tyrannized  over  by  short-sighted  fanatics  on  the 
one  side  and   corrupt  saloon-keepers  on  the  other,   the 
nation  will  proceed  with   the  unanimous  sympathy   of 
the  best  citizens  to  firm  temperance  laws  which  the  sound 
instinct  of  the  masses  will  really  respect.     Training  in 
self-control  as  against  recklessness,  training  in  harmless 
hilarity  and  social  enjoyment  as  against  mere  vulgar  ex- 
citement and  rag-time  pleasures,  training  In  respect  for 
law  as  against  living  under  hysterical  rules  which  cannot 
be  executed  and  which  invite  blackmail,  corruption,  and 
habitual  disregard  of  laws  —  these  are  indeed  the  most 
needed  influences  on  the  social  mind  of  the  country. 


PROHIBITION  AND  TEMPERANCE       91 


EPILOGUE 

CINCE  I  uttered  these  opinions  in  a  popular  magazine, 
a  whole  literature  of  socalled  replies  has  grown  up. 
There  was  no  lack  of  vehemence  and  an  abundance  of 
misstatement  but  I  looked  in  vain  for  arguments  which 
could  change  my  fundamental  opinion.  Let  us  only  see 
clearly  the  point  at  issue. 

We  all  agree  that  alcoholic  intemperance  is  one  of  the 
greatest  sources  of  human  misery,  being  the  direct  cause 
of  a  large  part  of  crime,  of  poverty,  of  illness,  of  insanity, 
of  early  death,  and  in  the  next  generation,  of  idiocy  and 
depravity.  Without  doubt  we  all  further  agree  that  the 
American  saloon  is  a  most  atrocious  insult  to  decent  social 
life  and  that  its  influence  toward  corrupt  politics  and 
toward  intemperate  habits  is  detestable.  We  all  further 
agree  that  all  alcoholic  beverages  are  dangerous  for  chil- 
dren and  psychopathies ;  and  we  agree  that  to  fight  against 
such  evils  is  the  duty  of  every  conscientious  reformer. 

Thus  our  possible  disagreement  appears  only  when  we 
consider  the  means  by  which  these  evils  can  be  removed  in 
the  highest  possible  degree  without  introducing  other  evils 
equally  calamitous.  After  studying  this  problem  for  more 
than  twenty  years,  after  repeating  frequently  in  the  psy- 
chological laboratory  all  the  significant  experiments  and 
after  curing  scores  of  drunkards  by  psychotherapeutic 
means,  thus  being  near  to  the  question  all  the  time,  I  am 
fully    convinced    that    under    the    present    conditions    of 


92  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

American  life  the  only  wise  way  of  reform  is  by  working 
toward  temperance  and  not  toward  prohibition.  It  must 
be  a  campaign  of  education  toward  a  moderate  use  of  light 
alcoholic  beverages. 

Of  course,  I  do  not  deny  that  the  other  side  has  a  much 
simpler  remedy.  To  exclude  all  alcohol  from  this  country 
by  prohibition  laws  seems  to  get  rid  of  the  evil  at  one 
stroke ;  it  indeed  needs  much  less  effort  than  a  true  educa- 
tion toward  temperance.  But  the  prohibition  movement 
is  just  like  the  free  silver  movement  in  economics,  or  like 
socialism  in  politics,  or  like  spiritualism  in  religion,  or  like 
Christian  Science  in  medicine,  or  like  pragmatism  in 
philosophy.  They  all  contain  a  little  core  of  truth,  but 
their  truth  is  old  and  they  become  new-fashioned  move- 
ments only  by  new  sensational  formulations  which  appeal 
to  the  unthinking  crowd.  But  just  this  always  secures  at 
first  an  immediate  cheap  victory;  a  superficiality  of  think- 
ing prevails  in  the  world  and  can  never  resist  the  enthu- 
siasm of  fanatics.  I  have  hardly  any  doubt  that  this 
prohibition  movement  too,  will  at  first  overwhelm  by  its 
very  superficiality  the  sober  efforts  for  education  and  re- 
form in  this  country,  just  as  the  vaudeville  and  the 
musical  comedy  have  overwhelmed  the  serious  drama,  as 
the  cheap  magazine  has  demolished  the  bookstore,  as  the 
yellow  press  has  captured  the  masses,  and  as  in  a  hundred 
other  forms  the  appeal  to  superficial  judgment  has  been 
successful.  Of  course  the  reaction  comes  in  time,  and  the 
cry  for  prohibition  will  disappear  as  the  cry  for  free 
silver  has  disappeared;  but  much  would  be  gained  for 


PROHIBITION  AND  TEMPERANCE       93 

the  true  progress  of  the  country  if  Instead  of  spasmodic 
zigzag  movements  all  sober  enemies  of  the  saloon  would 
advance  in  a  straight  line  together.  Otherwise  the  reac- 
tion against  a  victorious  prohibition  might  too  easily  lead 
back  to  intemperance. 

Let  us  not  forget  that  we  want  to  make  laws  for  a 
nation  whose  habitual  disrespect  for  the  written  statutes 
has  proved  In  past  years  to  be  the  chief  source  of  its 
troubles,  and  further  let  us  not  forget  that  we  want  to 
legislate  against  a  physiological  desire  which  belongs  to  a 
majority  of  men.  The  absence  of  this  desire  in  women 
or  in  a  large  number  of  men  whose  nervous  system  is 
differently  organized  can  easily  be  misleading.  I  per- 
sonally, for  instance,  brought  up  in  a  temperance  house- 
hold, have  had  all  my  life  a  physiological  dislike  not  only 
for  strong  drinks  but  also  for  beer.  But  in  planning  for 
the  millions  I  should  feel  reckless  and  irresponsible  If  I 
simply  generalized  my  own  chance  constitution.  I  have 
no  word  against  the  socalled  restriction  of  personal 
liberty;  I  know  no  right  to  personal  liberty  if  it  interferes 
with  the  common  good,  but  the  more  must  I  demand  that 
this  common  good  be  determined  by  careful  observation 
of  the  real  facts. 

The  kind  of  abstinence  legislation  which  prevails  in 
certain  parts  of  the  country  and  is  evidently  near  In  others 
is  surely  not  for  the  common  good.  That  it  destroys  in- 
dustries and  makes  hundreds  of  thousands  breadless  and 
deprives  millions  of  a  harmless,  joyful  feeling  Is  still  the 
smallest  harm  which  it  produces.     Far  more  Important 


94  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

is  the  disrespect  for  law  which  it  creates.  Prohibition 
puts  a  premium  on  the  systematic  violation  of  law  and 
produces  a  form  of  corruption  which  is  still  worse  than 
the  corruption  which  irradiates  from  the  licensed  saloon. 
Furthermore  it  re-enforces  drinking  in  its  most  miserable 
and  dangerous  form.  The  moderate  drinker  is  cut  off, 
while  the  immoderate  drinker  is  created.  It  abolishes 
light  wine  and  beer;  and  opens  wide  the  way  for  the  worst 
kind  of  whiskey.  It  eliminates  all  sound  supervision  and 
makes  minors  and  inebriates  the  favorite  customers.  A 
clean  surface  appearance  is  bought  at  the  price  of  inner 
moral  and  mental  destruction. 

Worst  of  all,  the  masses  who  feel  the  instinctive  need 
of  an  anaesthetic  quickly  find  substitutes.  I  speak  as  a 
psychotherapist  whose  experiences  cover  the  whole 
country  when  I  say  that  the  spreading  of  cocainism  and 
morphinism,  of  sexual  perversions  and  ruinous  habits 
among  the  abstainers  is  alarming.  But  even  on  the  sur- 
face anyone  can  see  to  what  a  degree  of  dullness  on  the 
one  side  and  of  vulgarity  on  the  other  the  masses  are  led 
if  the  means  of  physiological  relief  are  cut  off  from  a 
strong,  hardworking  population.  To  fight  intemperance 
by  prohibition  means  to  substitute  one  evil  for  another; 
a  reform  by  slow  education  toward  a  moderate  use  of 
light  wine  or  beer,  with  complete  abolition  of  the  present 
saloon  and  of  the  present  disgusting  habits,  is  the  only 
way  to  permanent  success  in  this  country,  as  long  as  Ameri- 
cans remain  Americans. 

The  discussion  is  also  distorted  when  overemphasis  is 


PROHIBITION  AND  TEMPERANCE       95 

laid  on  the  fact  that  a  very  large  number  of  crimes  are 
committed  under  alcoholic  influence.  The  reader  is  made 
to  believe  that  those  same  persons  would  be  desirable 
law-abiding  citizens,  if  they  remained  sober.  The  real 
situation  Is  less  promising.  We  simply  must  acknowledge 
that  a  large  number  of  minds  offer  insufficient  resistance 
to  unsound  impulse.  The  fact  that  those  men  indulge 
in  alcohol  in  an  intemperate  way  is  only  one  symptom  of 
the  same  make-up  which  leads  to  misdemeanor  and  crime. 
Their  intemperance  is  itself  a  symptom  of  their  anti- 
social tendency  and  in  not  a  few  cases  the  impulse  to  drink 
with  its  resulting  coarse  pleasure  Is  probably  even  a  sub- 
stitute for  antilegal  impulses.  Figures  easily  mislead 
there.  In  certain  states  much  has  been  made  for  Instance 
of  certain  statistics  concerning  the  cigarette  smoking  of 
school  children.  It  has  been  found  that  those  boys  wha 
smoke  are  among  the  worst  in  the  classroom  and  the 
campaign  literature  of  the  anticigarette  party  jumps  to  the 
conclusion  that  the  bad  standing  in  the  class  is  the  result 
of  the  narcotic  effect  of  the  cigarettes.  Here  too,  the 
much  more  natural  conclusion  is  that  those  boys  of  the 
lower  order  who  are  unfit  to  do  their  duty  well  and  who 
are  anyhow  bad  in  their  standing  in  school  on  account  of 
careless  education  without  moral  supervision  are  at  the 
same  time  those  who  rush  into  the  miserable  habit  of 
cigarette  smoking. 

Of  course,  there  are  not  a  few  who  are  convinced  that 
alcohol  is  ruinous  for  everyone,  even  in  moderate  quan- 
tities; and  it  has  become  the  fashion  to  support  this  belief 


96  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

by  the  results  of  scientific  investigations.  I  am  convinced 
that  there  exists  no  scientifically  sound  fact  which  demon- 
strates evil  effects  from  a  temperate  use  of  alcohol  by 
normal  adult  men.  Every  claim  on  the  one  side  has  been 
disproved  by  just  as  important  experiments  on  the  other 
side.  Even  on  physiological  ground,  everything  is  un- 
certain. Dr.  Williams,  of  New  York,  tells  us  that  al- 
cohol Is  never  a  food;  and  Dr.  Dana,  of  New  York,  the 
president  of  the  New  York  Academy  of  Medicine,  tells 
us  that  alcohol  is  always  a  food.  Dr.  Williams  writes 
that  alcohol  always  lessens  the  power  of  work;  and  Dr. 
Dana  writes  that,  as  proved  by  recent  experiments,  alcohol 
has  no  effect,  one  way  or  the  other,  on  the  capacity  to  work 
if  given  in  moderate  daily  doses.  Dr.  Williams  writes 
that  alcohol  is  the  greatest  evil  of  modern  society;  and  Dr. 
Dana  writes  that  the  immediate  removal  of  alcohol  from 
social  life  would  lead  to  social  and  racial  decadence. 

But  I,  a  psychologist,  am  naturally  more  interested  in 
the  mental  side.  Dr.  Williams  and  so  many  others 
dogmatically  assure  us,  for  instance,  that  alcohol  cuts  off 
the  power  of  mental  production.  But  is  a  psychological 
laboratory  really  necessary  to  demonstrate  the  hollowness 
of  such  general  statements?  I  know  scores  of  men  who 
never  produce  better  than  after  a  moderate  use  of  al- 
cohol, and  It  Is  well  known  that  this  is  true  in  exceptional 
cases  even  where  immoderate  use  Is  Indulged  in.  I  had 
to  hypnotize  only  recently  a  well-known  New  York  author 
whose  secret  trouble  is  that  he  has  never  written  a  page 


PROHIBITION  AND  TEMPERANCE       97 

of  his  brilliant  books  except  after  intemperate  use  of 
whiskey. 

Dr.  Williams  assures  us  that  moderate  use  of  wine  and 
beer  reduces  the  powers  of  Intellectual  activity ;  and  again 
the  psychological  experiment  Is  said  to  have  proved  that. 
Here  I  must  instinctively  think  of  my  teacher  who  has 
given  to  the  world  the  methods  of  the  psychological  ex- 
periment, the  greatest  living  psychologist.  He  Is  seventy- 
seven  years  old,  has  written  about  forty  volumes  which 
are  acknowledged  the  world  over  as  the  deepest  contribu- 
tions to  psychological  thought,  wrote  last  year  an  epoch- 
making  book;  and  yet  for  sixty  years  has  taken  beer  and 
wine  twice  a  day  with  every  meal.  Two  summers  ago 
I  attended  a  number  of  international  congresses  and  saw 
there  at  many  banquets  the  leaders  of  thought  from  all 
nations.  I  watched  the  situation  carefully  but  did  not 
discover  any  abstainers  among  the  sharp  and  great 
thinkers  of  any  nation. 

To  demonstrate  that  the  abstainers  enjoy  clearer 
methods  of  thinking  than  such  drinking  scholars  would 
indeed  be  an  Interesting  experiment,  but  from  the  prohibi- 
tionist literature  I  cannot  gain  the  Impression  that  clear- 
ness of  thinking  is  their  particular  strength.  Typical  of 
their  lack  of  clearness  is  the  way  in  which  they  draw 
arbitrary  consequences  from  real  experiments.  For  in- 
stance, It  is  quite  right  to  claim  that  alcohol  makes  our 
mental  associations  slower,  but  they  interpret  It  as  if  that 
involved    a    destructive    crippling    of    our    mental    life. 


98  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

They  do  not  even  ask  themselves  whether  or  not  this 
retardation  of  association  of  Ideas  may  not  be  a  most 
helpful  and  useful  relaxation  of  certain  brain  centers. 
With  the  same  logic  they  might  demonstrate  to  us  that 
sleep  Is  a  most  ruinous  Invention  of  nature,  as  it  paralyzes 
our  brain  centers  still  more ;  and  they  have  not  the  slightest 
understanding  of  the  fundamental  fact  that  such  an  in- 
hibition in  certain  parts  of  the  brain  belongs  to  every 
single  act  of  attention.  They  do  not  take  the  trouble  to 
ask  whether  or  not  our  associations  are  also  changed 
through  the  digestion  of  a  dry  meal. 

With  such  careless  misinterpretations  of  isolated  ex- 
periments we  could  most  easily  demonstrate  that  every 
hour  of  physical  exercise  Is  ruinous  for  the  higher  mental 
life;  or  that  the  fatigue  from  the  hearing  of  one  hour's 
lecture  makes  mental  cripples  out  of  all  of  us.  The  fear 
of  those  who  want  to  cut  off  a  bottle  of  light  beer  from 
the  evening  meal  of  a  hard  working  laborer  on  account  of 
the  psychological  experiments  Is  comparable  only  with 
the  fear  of  the  bacterlophobists.  They  would  like  to 
see  every  man  live  Isolated  In  the  middle  of  the  ocean 
because  In  every  other  place  the  laboratory  can  demon- 
strate numberless  microbes  and  bacteria. 

The  only  reasonable  argument  against  moderate  drink- 
ing by  normal  adult  men  Is  a  fear  that  they  may  transcend 
wise  limits.  Yes,  In  the  pamphlets  written  against  my 
essay  I  confess  the  only  word  which  made  an  Impression  on 
me  was  one  contained  In  a  Chicago  pamphlet,  which  said 


PROHIBITION  AND  TEMPERANCE       99 

we  must  consider  that  Americans  are  reckless  and  carry 
everything  to  excess.  But  can  that  really  be  the  attitude 
of  a  civilized  nation?  To  legislate  as  if  the  citizens  were 
irresponsible  children,  incapable  of  moderation,  would 
mean  a  degradation  of  the  whole  country.  With  the 
same  justice  we  might  prohibit  every  sport  because  it  be- 
comes ruinous  to  the  organism  if  carried  to  an  excess. 
To  be  sure  the  Americans  are  reckless  and  excessive; 
otherwise  we  should  not  have  ten  times  more  railroad  ac- 
cidents than  Europe,  and  gambling  and  an  absurd  chase 
for  money  all  over  the  land.  But  the  only  sound  conse- 
quence is  that  every  reformer  should  educate  toward 
moderation  in  all  fields. 

Prohibition  removes  every  temptation.  Hence  it  has 
no  educative  influence  whatever.  To  learn  to  be  moder- 
ate involves  the  development  of  will  power  which  is  ben- 
eficial in  every  walk  of  life.  Only  cowards  who  have  no 
trust  in  their  own  will  prefer  to  be  removed  from  every 
temptation.  I  remember  well  a  man  who  was  president 
of  an  abstinence  society  for  many  years,  and  then  used 
for  medicinal  purposes  a  glass  of  brandy.  As  he  had  not 
been  trained  in  any  moderation,  the  one  glass  stirred  up 
a  craving  for  more  until  he  was  lying  in  the  gutter;  and 
when  he  was  brought  to  me  to  be  hypnotized,  he  confessed 
that  he  had  no  will  to  abstain  from  over-indulgence.  The 
campaign  for  temperance  as  against  prohibition  is  a  cam- 
paign for  education  which  goes  far  beyond  the  special 
purpose,  and  works  against  excessiveness  and  recklessness 


loo  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

in  every  field.  If  all  the  enemies  of  the  saloon  and  of 
intemperance  were  to  unite  on  such  lines  of  conservative 
progress,  a  real  restoration  to  health  and  order  might 
soon  be  secured;  the  radicalism  of  prohibition  only  delays 
reform  until  it  may  be  too  late. 


THE  INTEMPERANCE  OF  WOMEN 


dWVERGlTV  cr  CrliFOr.l^ 


THE   INTEMPERANCE   OE   WOMEN 

TT  is  a  wholesome  movement  which  now  turns  encrgetic- 
*•  ally  against  the  evils  of  the  American  saloon.  There 
may  be  disagreement  as  to  the  best  ways  and  means,  dis- 
agreement whether  strict  prohibition  or  a  real  education 
toward  temperance  is  the  more  reliable  method  but  there 
is  hardly  any  disagreement  as  to  the  fact  that  the  saloon 
in  its  present  form  with  its  social,  hygienic  and  political 
evils  must  be  wiped  out.  The  day  for  a  widespread  re- 
form in  the  direction  of  better  social  habits  seems  near  and 
the  women  claim  loudly  that  thanks  for  it  is  due  to  them. 
Their  moral  sense,  they  claim,  has  saved  the  country. 

But  may  it  not  be  somewhat  rash  to  acknowledge  that 
the  women  have  a  special  right  to  make  such  a  claim,  as  if 
their  temperance  and  their  self-control,  their  moral  sense 
and  their  social  righteousness  had  won  the  victory  over 
the  indecency  and  intemperance,  the  selfishness  and  the 
disorderliness  of  men.  They  have  made  no  particular 
sacrifice  in  abolishing  the  saloons  where  their  husbands 
and  sons  and  brothers  enjoyed  themselves,  however  il- 
lusory that  enjoyment  may  have  been.  They  did  not  have 
to  carry  on  a  moral  struggle  in  pledging  abstinence;  they 
had  never  felt  attracted  by  the  rum  barrel,  they  never 

103 


I04  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

felt  that  particular  craving  for  liquor  which  belongs  to 
the  organization  of  millions  of  men,  but  which  has  only 
seldom  troubled  a  woman. 

Even  the  firmest  believer  in  the  equal  rights  of  women 
cannot  deny  that  there  exist  by  nature  certain  bodily 
differences  in  the  makeup  of  the  sexes  and  that  certain 
differences  of  instinct  and  desire  result  from  it.  The  long- 
ing for  that  feeling  of  elation  and  illusory  strength  which 
alcohol  furnishes  most  quickly  has  at  all  times  and  in  all 
nations  appeared  as  a  characteristic,  or  call  it  a  defect, 
or  call  it  a  vice  of  men.  That  the  women  abstain  from 
that  for  which  they  do  not  care  is  no  cause  for  special 
moral  admiration. 

But  more  than  that,  in  lighting  against  the  saloon  the 
American  woman  works  most  directly  for  her  own  protec- 
tion. If  the  husband  spends  his  money  for  gin  the  wife 
and  children  are  deprived;  if  he  poisons  his  mind  by  in- 
temperate use  of  whiskey  the  wife  will  suffer  from  his 
irrational  vehemence;  If  he  has  to  pay  the  consequences 
of  his  craving  behind  prison  walls  the  wife  will  be  with- 
out a  supporter.  The  short-sighted  man  may  not  see 
those  evils,  the  weak  man  may  deceive  himself,  but  a 
woman  cannot  help  seeing  and  feeling  that  her  own  ad- 
vantage and  happiness  are  at  stake.  Her  cry  against  the 
saloon  is  thus  a  cry  for  help ;  it  is  a  struggle  for  her  own 
personal  comfort  and  safety;  and  there  is  no  reason  for 
special  praise  and  admiration  for  one  who  enters  into  a 
selfish  fight  against  the  common  enemy. 

If  the  question  is  raised  whether  there  is  a  moral  merit 


THE  INTEMPERANCE  OF  WOMEN      105 

In  the  attitude  of  women  toward  this  wrong  of  men  we 
thus  have  to  abstract  entirely  from  the  mere  denunciation 
of  the  saloon  and  the  drunkard.  A  moral  merit  which 
deserves  praise  would  arise  only  if  women  were  to  set  a 
good  example,  not  by  abstaining  from  liquor  for  which 
they  do  not  care,  but  by  abstaining  from  those  harmful 
cravings  which  arise  In  female  minds  and  by  working  with 
real  self-denial  for  all  those  aims  with  which  the  saloon 
interferes.  If  the  millions  of  women  were  to  show  heroic 
abstinence,  or  at  least  reasonable  temperance,  with  regard 
to  their  own  destructive  desires,  their  virtue  would  show 
the  way  for  the  sinful,  stumbling  man;  but  If  they  are 
intemperate  simply  In  the  lines  of  their  desires  their  out- 
cries against  the  intemperance  of  the  thirsty  are  at  least  not 
Imposing. 

The  women  Insist,  and  they  are  right,  that  men  waste 
their  money  in  the  saloon,  and  spend  thus,  for  their  own 
selfish  enjoyment,  that  which  ought  to  be  saved  for  the 
family.  Prohibition  alone,  they  say,  will  prevent  the  man 
from  throwing  away  by  drink  In  a  night  hour  what  he  has 
earned  by  his  hard  day's  work.  Of  course,  that  Is  a 
strictly  economic  question  which  must  appeal  even  to  the 
most  cruel  heart  when  women  tell  us  that  the  husband 
spends  for  his  whiskey  what  ought  to  be  used  on  medicine 
for  the  sick  babies.  But  are  we  perfectly  sure  that  it 
would  really  have  been  spent  for  such  a  noble  cause,  for 
the  satisfaction  of  a  serious  need  or  for  wise  saving  in  the 
family's  Interest  —  and  not,  perhaps,  for  the  woman's 
new  hat?     Economic  questions  must  be  cleanly  dealt  with 


io6   .  [AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

from  an  economic  point  of  view.  Can  there  be  any  doubt 
for  the  neutral  onlooker  of  American  society  on  every 
social  level  that  man's  squandering  of  money  for  bever- 
ages which  he  enjoys  is  still  outdone  by  woman's  squander- 
ing of  money  on  gowns  which  she  enjoys?  And  there  is 
only  a  mild  extenuation  of  this  egotism  in  the  altruistic  fact 
that  she  hopes  that  he,  too,  will  enjoy  her  gowns.  To 
say  that  the  millinery  stores  and  the  dressmakers  profit 
from  the  luxury,  stands  on  no  higher  economic  ground 
than  the  fact  that  the  drinker  gives  handsome  profit  to  the 
bartender  and  the  distiller. 

From  the  higher  economic  point  of  view  the  sums  which 
the  feminine  members  of  the  American  family  are  spend- 
ing on  their  exterior  decoration  are  entirely  out  of  pro- 
portion to  those  which  are  given  for  wholesome  food,  for 
care  of  the  body,  for  books  and  culture,  for  service  and 
art,  for  a  wise  saving  or  for  the  public  good.  No  other 
civilized  nation  indulges  in  such  waste  as  this  which  has 
become  the  craving  of  the  fairer  half  of  the  nation. 
It  is  the  one  thing  which  the  overfashionable  lady  of  re- 
finement shares  with  the  wife  of  her  tradesman,  shares 
with  her  most  ignorant  kitchen  girl,  and  shares  with  the 
wife  of  the  most  ordinary  working-man.  The  whirl- 
wind changes  of  fashion  are  treated  like  sacred  duties. 

It  may  rightly  be  insisted  by  the  prohibitionists  that  the 
pleasure  from  wine  and  beer  is  illusory,  as  no  lasting 
happiness  Is  attached  to  it;  but  is  there  a  more  illusory 
happiness  than  that  of  carrying  to  church  the  largest 
ostrich  plumes  on  one's  hat?     To  demand  that  the  bus- 


THE  INTEMPERANCE  OF  WOMEN      107 

band  save  his  money  and  overcome  his  thirst  that  the 
wife  may  spend  It  for  the  satisfaction  of  her  craving  vanity 
Is  economically  no  change  for  the  better. 

To  be  sure,  the  women  will  say :  "  Our  fight  against 
the  drinking  of  men  Is  not  only  a  problem  of  spending 
and  saving.  Much  more  important  than  the  mere 
economic  aspect  is  the  social  one.  Alcohol  ruins  the  work- 
ing power  of  man  and  thus  makes  him  inefficient ;  it  dulls 
his  interest  and  his  feeling  of  responsibility;  the  drinker 
cannot  live  up  to  his  duties  toward  his  work,  toward  his 
family,  toward  his  community,  toward  his  country.  We 
want  temperance  for  these  reasons  higher  than  mere 
money  saving."  All  that  Is  very  true,  but  It  suggests 
again  the  counter  question:  Where  Is  the  temperance  of 
the  women  In  all  those  functions  which  destroy  the 
woman's  efficiency  and  the  woman's  work  for  the  home 
and  the  country?  Where  is  their  self-denial,  when  their 
temptation  comes  for  dulling  the  mind  and  for  under- 
mining their  energies?  Let  us  consider  the  case  a  little 
more  closely. 

What  Is,  after  all,  the  pernicious  effect  of  an  intemper- 
ate use  of  alcohol  ?  Why  does  the  man  rush  to  dangerous 
acts,  and  why  is  he  unable  to  connect  his  thoughts  care- 
fully and  to  think  of  all  the  consequences,  as  soon  as  his 
brain  Is  poisoned  by  whiskey  ?  It  means  simply  this :  Al- 
cohol has  the  power  of  paralyzing  in  every  brain  those 
centers  which  check  and  regulate  the  actions  of  the  brain 
nerves.  The  physiologist  calls  this  checking  influence 
"  inhibition,"    and   he   would   say   alcohol   prevents   the 


io8  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

centers  of  inhibition  from  doing  their  work.  In  every 
sober  man  plenty  of  impulses  come  up,  but  he  can  in- 
hibit them;  if  the  organism  is  poisoned  by  liquor  this 
inhibition  fails  and  the  impulse  rushes  to  action.  Practi- 
cally every  single  disturbance  of  alcoholic  intemperance 
results  from  such  loss  of  inhibition.  It  is  as  if  the 
supervisor  had  gone  to  sleep  and  all  the  ideas  and  im- 
pulses do  just  as  they  please  without  control  and  connec- 
tion. The  craving  of  man  for  alcohol  results  just  from 
the  fact  that  in  his  sober  life  these  inhibition  centers  are 
very  strongly  at  work.  They  make  man  efficient  for  great 
tasks,  but  as  this  represses  the  freedom  of  his  impulses 
and  the  free  play  of  his  ideas  he  sometimes  longs  to  get 
rid  of  this  supervising  master  in  his  mind.  Women  do 
not  have  this  longing  because  their  inhibition  centers  are 
by  nature  less  active.  Woman  is  therefore  somewhat 
more  emotional  and  less  deliberate.  Much  of  the  fem- 
inine charm  results  from  this  weaker  development  of  the 
inhibitory  region  in  the  brain.  Woman  does  not  feel  it 
as  a  disturbance,  and  therefore  has  no  use  for  alcohol. 

But  to  be  efficient  in  life,  to  do  our  work  with  energy 
and  to  do  it  well,  much  more,  of  course,  is  needed  than 
mere  supervision  and  regulation.  We  need,  above  all,  at- 
tention and  effort;  we  must  be  excited  from  brain  centers 
which  furnish  the  strength  and  the  energy  for  our  thoughts 
and  acts.  If  those  attention  centers  were  not  at  work  our 
impulses  would  become  flabby,  our  thoughts  would  be  con- 
stantly shifting,  our  ideas  would  remain  superficial,  we 
should  lack  the  power  to  hold  anything  steadily  before 


THE  INTEMPERANCE  OF  WOMEN      109 

our  minds  and  to  overcome  resistance  and  to  live  up  to 
our  duty.  These  attention  centers  are  the  real  well  of  our 
higher  life,  they  give  to  our  personality  its  true  meaning 
and  character.  No  brain  destruction  could  be  worse  than 
the  paralysis  of  those  centers. 

And  yet  just  here  sets  in  the  craving  of  the  woman,  and 
with  a  thousand  devices  she  tries  to  subdue  and  to  render 
ineffective  these  attention  centers  which  trouble  her  as 
much  as  the  inhibition  centers  trouble  her  husband. 
There  are  many  ways  to  render  these  attention  centers 
inactive.  For  instance,  they  can  very  easily  be  dulled  and 
benumbed  and  almost  put  to  sleep  by  a  continuous  repeti- 
tion of  monotonous  faint  impressions,  a  kind  of  hypnotiz- 
ing of  the  attention.  Or  it  can  be  done  by  constantly 
rushing  from  one  thing  to  another,  each  just  making  a 
fugitive  impression  on  the  mind  which  is  not  connected  by 
a  firm  act  of  attention  with  that  which  went  before  and 
with  that  which  is  to  follow.  Instead  of  expressing  it  in: 
such  terms  of  physiological  psychology  let  me  state  it 
practically  by  some  illustrations. 

If,  for  instance,  a  man  came  to  my  office  and  com- 
plained that  he  had  such  a  strong  feeling  of  reserve,  duty 
and  discipline  that  he  would  like  to  get  rid  of  all  these  in- 
hibitions quickly,  I  should  give  him  as  a  prescription: 
*'  My  dear  man,  go  into  the  next  saloon  and  drink  a  whole 
bottle  of  whiskey  and  all  that  discipline  and  order  and 
sense  of  duty  will  quickly  be  abolished." 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  his  wife  came  to  my  office  and 
should  complain  that,  whatever  she  undertakes,  she  puts 


no  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

her  serious  attention  into  it,  and  makes  an  energetic  effort 
to  do  it  as  well  as  she  can,  and  strives  with  her  whole 
personality  toward  high  ideals  which  demand  her  full 
power  of  mind,  then  I  should  say:  "  My  dear  woman, 
of  course  we  must  abolish  such  a  lamentable  state,  and  I 
shall  give  you  my  prescription.  Please  begin  at  first  by 
always  sitting  in  a  rocking-chair,  which  by  its  monotonous 
movement  has  a  very  nice  hypnotizing  influence.  Take 
care  also  that  you  have  a  box  of  candy  always  at  hand; 
this  constant  nibbling  will  aid  splendidly  in  the  dulling 
of  your  attention.  If  you  do  not  feel  too  elegant  for  it 
I  can  also  recommend  chewing-gum.  Then  be  careful 
with  your  reading.  You  must  never  read  a  book  where 
one  chapter  demands  that  you  hold  before  your  mind 
what  you  have  read  In  the  foregoing  chapter.  The  right 
thing  for  you  is  to  take  a  half  a  dozen  illustrated  magazines 
at  a  time  and  to  glance  over  the  pictures;  you  may  read 
somewhat  more  carefully  the  advertisements,  here  and 
there  you  might  peep  Into  an  article,  but  take  care  that 
there  Is  no  inner  coherence  in  what  you  are  reading.  It 
is  hardly  necessary  to  advise  you  seriously  to  avoid  any 
theaters  where  the  plays  have  a  plot  in  the  old-fashioned 
way.  Farces  and  musical  comedies,  in  which  you  never 
know  what  they  are  talking  about,  are  exactly  the  things 
which  you  need,  if  you  supplement  them  from  time  to 
time  by  a  few  hours  in  a  continuous  vaudeville  show.  As 
to  your  social  Intercourse,  you  will  be  reasonable  enough 
to  abstain  from  earnest  conversations;  but  afternoon  teas 
in  which  you  talk  with  two  hundred  persons  in  three- 


THE  INTEMPERANCE  OF  WOMEN     in 

quarters  of  an  hour  can  be  quite  helpful  to  you.  Of 
course,  you  will  not  bother  yourself  with  the  education  of 
your  children,  but  you  may  get  good  fun  out  of  them, 
especially  if  you  amuse  yourself  with  them  in  ridiculing 
their  teacher. 

"  Yet  I  am  afraid  that  there  will  still  be  lots  of  empty 
time  which  ought  to  be  filled  in  the  service  of  our  cure; 
and  I  recommend  to  you,  therefore,  something  which  is 
still  better  than  the  '  patent  medicines '  in  which  you  be- 
lieve, namely.  Bridge.  That  has  already  cured  the  most 
desperate  cases  of  serious  attention.  It  is  well  to  accom- 
pany this  by  going  shopping  from  time  to  time  without 
the  aim  of  buying  anything  in  particular,  yet  finally  buy- 
ing something  which  you  do  not  need  and  do  not  care  for. 
If  your  purse  allows  it,  by  all  means  use  your  motor-car 
much;  it  is  very  unsafe  to  pass  through  the  country  in 
the  slow  pace  which  allows  an  attentive  contemplation  of 
Nature,  but  I  am  sure  your  chauffeur  will  take  care  that 
every  Impression  will  rush  through  your  mind  without 
leaving  any  trace.  I  know  some  of  your  friends  recom- 
mend also  whirling  through  Europe,  spending  every  night 
in  a  different  hotel.  Indeed  that  is  not  bad ;  but  you  must 
surely  take  care  that  you  do  not  plan  more  than  six  days 
for  Italy  —  one  and  a  half  is  certainly  enough  for  Rome. 

"  If  you  are  of  more  moderate  means  do  not  despair! 
You  can  have  it  all  without  paying  for  any  automobiles. 
The  least  expensive  and  yet  most  effective  road  is  to 
devote  yourself  to  public  questions  without  studying  them. 
Decide  the  problems  of  the  community  over  your  cup  of 


112  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

tea.  There  is  always  some  nice  fad  on  the  way  for  abolish- 
ing arithmetic  from  the  schools  or  for  educating  the 
Hottentots;  and  it  is  so  delightful  to  talk  about  it  all. 
Believe  me,  my  dear  woman,  all  this  will  cure  you  just 
as  safely  and  just  as  quickly  as  your  husband  is  cured 
from  his  trouble  by  his  full  bottle  of  whiskey.  He  will 
not  be  at  home  much,  but,  believe  me,  you  will  not  either ; 
and  he  will  feel  happy  in  his  tipsiness  and  you  will  feel 
happy  in  your  '  engagements.'  " 

But  is  it  necessary  that  I  write  out  such  a  prescrijftion  ? 
The  man  has  found  his  way  to  the  saloon  by  instinct, 
and  the  craving  of  the  woman  for  the  dulling  of  her  at- 
tention has  been  satisfied  by  instinct,  too.  And  yet  no  one 
seems  to  understand  that  temperance  is  in  the  one  case 
quite  as  necessary  as  in  the  other.  The  alarming  effect  of 
the  intemperance  in  satisfying  such  a  craving  is  just  as  ruin- 
ous for  the  community  in  the  one  case  as  in  the  other. 
The  personal  efficiency  is  lost  by  such  a  pace  in  a  woman's 
life,  the  home  is  neglected,  the  moral  development  of  the 
children  is  not  cared  for,  the  money  is  wasted  and  public 
life  is  damaged  —  just  the  same  effects  as  those  which  the 
saloon  produces.  Yes,  public  life  is  damaged,  for  it  is 
ruinous  indeed  for  the  community  if  such  superficiality 
wins  the  day.  On  the  one  side  the  institutions  and  crea- 
tions of  the  nation  are  dragged  down  by  becoming  ad- 
justed to  such  flabby  inattention.  The  literature  is 
written  more  and  more  for  readers  whose  span  of  atten- 
tion is  ineffective.  The  American  stage  becomes  one 
great  national  vaudeville.     There  are  more  theaters  in 


THE  INTEMPERANCE  OF  WOMEN      113 

New  York  to-day  than  in  Berlin;  but  in  the  German  city 
twenty  times  more  Shakespeare  is  played  than  in  the 
Anglo-Saxon.  On  the  other  hand,  the  public  questions, 
as  soon  as  such  superficial  women  mix  in  in  masses,  come 
more  and  more  under  the  influence  of  emotional  whims; 
instead  of  serious  study  we  have  hysterical  explosions, 
spasmodic  efforts,  useless  zigzag  movements. 

Yes,  is  not  even  the  part  which  women  play  in  the 
public  movement  toward  the  abolition  of  the  saloon 
typical  of  this  superficial  sort  of  action?  The  problem 
of  freeing  the  community  from  the  evils  which  result  from 
man's  intemperance  is  with  us  and  cries  out  for  solution. 
If  it  were  left  to  experts  who  would  thoroughly  study  the 
economic  and  social,  the  hygienic  and  psychological  con- 
ditions, steady  progress  could  be  hoped  for.  If  instead 
of  it  an  emotional  and  whimsical  treatment  is  preferred 
in  which  the  problem  is  handed  over  to  those  who  are 
influenced  by  mere  feeling,  the  outcome  must  be  one  for 
which  the  community  will  pay  heavily  by  turbulent  reac- 
tions and  unforeseen  damages.  The  problem  of  intem- 
perance, like  any  other  serious  problem,  cannot  be  solved 
by  intemperance  of  emotion.  If  a  true  reform  is  to  come, 
it  must  be  on  both  sides.  The  sermon  of  self-discipline 
and  of  self-restraint  is  needed  by  women  and  men  alike. 


VI 

MY  FRIENDS,  THE  SPIRITUALISTS 


iVI 

MY   FRIENDS,   THE   SPIRITUALISTS 

T  T  has  been  a  great  surprise  to  me.  When  I  came  to  my 
first  seance  with  Eusapia  Palladino,  I  expected  to  see 
that  disagreeable  Italian  peasant  woman  whom  the  news- 
papers had  so  often  described  as  coarse  and  ordinary,  un- 
educated and  vulgar.  Instead,  I  found  a  lady  who  must 
have  been  unusually  beautiful  in  youth,  with  a  delicate 
humor  around  her  eyes,  with  an  expression  of  sympathy 
and  almost  of  brilliancy  in  her  face,  with  a  vivacity  and 
cleverness  which  would  have  attracted  me  in  any  parlor. 
This  impression  grew,  and  it  was  emphasized  by  seeing 
how  much  she  evidently  suffered  from  the  efforts  of  the 
seances.  I  am  glad  that  this  sympathy  is  mutual.  When 
she  saw  me  for  the  first  time,  I  shivered  at  the  thought 
that  some  of  my  sins  of  skepticism  might  express  them- 
selves on  my  forehead;  her  telepathic  gift  might  tell  her 
something  of  all  the  bad  things  which  I  printed  once  be- 
fore about  the  spiritualists.  But  my  fear  of  disaster  was 
quickly  dispelled.  With  her  inimitable  charm  she  at  once 
pointed  to  me  as  the  one  whom  she  wished  to  have  at  her 
best  side.  She  is  left-handed,  and  most  of  the  wonder- 
ful phenomena  occur  on  her  left  side.  I  was  to  sit  at 
her  left  with  one  hand  holding  her  left  hand  and  with  the 

117 


ii8  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

other  hand  holding  her  knees  under  the  table  while  her 
left  foot  was  resting  on  my  foot.  A  friend  of  mine  was 
holding  her  right  hand  and  controlling  her  right  foot. 

I  am  happy  to  say  this  quick  touch  of  sympathy  be- 
tween spiritualistic  mediums  and  me  is  an  old  story.  I 
still  remember  how  quickly  I  became  intimate  at  a  recep- 
tion in  Paris  with  a  delightful  English  lady,  who  did 
not  know  me  and  whom  I  did  not  know,  as  in  the  noise 
of  the  festivity  we  were  introduced  without  understanding 
one  another's  names.  We  were  so  happy  that  night ;  and 
I  never  have  forgotten  the  shock  which  dear  old  Mr. 
Myers,  the  venerable  head  of  the  psychical  researches, 
received  when  he  suddenly  discovered  that  his  famous 
medium  was  in  such  unholy  company.  I  had,  and  I  have, 
really  the  best  intentions  toward  them,  and  I  sometimes 
feel  quite  ashamed  to  think  what  ungrateful  things  I  have 
uttered  about  their  gifts.  To  be  sure,  sometimes  they 
have  treated  me  badly,  too.  How  unkind,  for  instance, 
was  Mrs.  Holland,  whose  trance-writings  are  so  care- 
fully reported  in  the  Proceedings  of  the  Society  for 
Psychical  Research !  She  once  wrote  in  her  automatic 
writing,  "  Hugo  —  H.  M. —  Minsterberg  —  Hugo,"  but 
instead  of  honoring  me  by  the  flattering  hypothesis  that 
she  might  have  heard  my  name  before,  she  refused  this 
possibility;  it  was  the  spirit  of  the  late  Richard  Hodgson 
who  had  reported  my  name  to  her  from  another  world. 
But  in  any  case,  if  there  is  in  the  spiritualistic  heaven  more 
joy  over  one  sinner  who  repenteth,  the  spirits  must  have 
enjoyed  it  greatly,  when  on  that  stormy  night  in  the 


MY  FRIENDS,  THE  SPIRITUALISTS      119 

Lincoln  Square  Arcade,  New  York  City,  I  sat  down  hold- 
ing the  knees  of  Madame  Palladino. 

Seriously  speaking,  it  was  not  an  easy  decision  for  me  to 
accept  Mr.  Hereward  Carrington's  invitation  to  take  part 
in  an  investigation  of  Madame  Palladino's  famous 
powers.  I  had,  indeed,  refused  such  urgent  requests 
through  all  my  psychological  career.  I  have  not  con- 
sidered it  a  part  of  scientific  psychology  to  examine  the 
socalled  mystical  occurrences.  Just  because  I  have  always 
been  interested  in  the  abnormal  borderland  regions  of 
mind,  in  hypnotic  and  hysteric  phenomena,  I  have  been 
anxious  to  draw  a  sharp  demarcation  line  between  such 
abnormities  of  mental  behavior  and  the  spiritualistic 
claims. 

When  I  arrived  in  this  country,  the  cult  of  Mrs.  Piper 
was  flourishing,  and  I  was  urged  from  all  sides  to  study 
her  sensational  case.  I  saw  at  once  that  if  I  began  that 
inquiry  at  all,  I  should  have  to  devote  myself  to  it  with 
an  energy  which  would  absorb  all  my  time  and  power. 
To  visit  such  seances  only  as  a  kind  of  entertainment 
under  loose  conditions  would  have  been  without  any  value 
for  science.  On  the  other  hand,  too  many  experiences 
of  others  warned  me  against  any  concentration  of  efforts 
on  that  problem.  The  only  clean  way  seemed  for  me  to 
stay  away  from  it  entirely.  Since  those  early  days,  hardly 
a  week  has  passed  by  in  which  I  have  not  been  urged  to 
examine  some  mystical  case.  But  I  have  remained  loyal 
to  my  program  and  refused  consistently  all  contact  with 
the  mystical  phenomena.     I  have  never  hesitated  to  ex- 


I20  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

plain  my  standpoint  publicly,  and  I  have  been  more  than 
glad  to  see  how  in  the  last  decade  this  attitude  of  caution 
has  spread  more  and  more;  and  especially,  that  the  discus- 
sion on  psychotherapy  has  become  liberated  from  the 
mystical  admixtures. 

On  the  other  hand,  in  spiritualistic  circles  the  accusa- 
tions grew  in  warmth.  The  favorite  condemnation  was 
that  people  like  me  demonstrate  by  their  behavior  a 
"  shallow  dogmatism  "  which  is  no  less  unworthy  than  the 
most  superstitious  mysticism.  It  is  the  duty  of  a  psy- 
chologist to  examine  the  totality  of  mental  occurrences, 
and  he  has  no  right  to  close  his  eyes  on  that  which  seems 
to  transcend  our  present  powers  of  explanation.  I  heard 
this  so  often  and  so  impressively  that  I  finally  yielded.  I 
simply  said :  "  Madame  Palladino  is  your  best  case.  She 
is  the  one  woman  who  has  convinced  some  world-famous 
men.     I  never  was  afraid  of  ghosts ;  let  them  come !  " 

Of  course  this  change  in  my  action  by  no  means  meant 
a  change  in  a  fundamental  conviction  which  contributed 
much  to  my  previous  reluctance.  I  do  not  refer  to  any 
philosophical  or  theoretical  conviction,  but  to  the  practical 
one  that  I  myself  am  entirely  unfit  for  such  an  investiga- 
tion. There  the  public  is  usually  under  the  influence  of 
a  curious  illusion.  Most  people  think  that  a  scientist  is 
especially  adapted  to  carrying  on  such  an  inquiry,  and 
if  a  great  scholar  becomes  convinced  of  the  genuineness  of 
the  performance,  the  public  looks  on  that  as  a  strong  argu- 
ment. I  am  inclined  to  think  that  scholars  are  especially 
poor  witnesses  in  such  a  case.     They  are  trained  through 


MY  FRIENDS,  THE  SPIRITUALISTS      121 

their  whole  life  to  breathe  in  an  atmosphere  of  trust. 
The  scientist  who  experiments  in  his  laboratory  and  studies 
the  laws  of  physics  or  chemistry  or  biology  has  not  the 
slightest  reason  to  be  afraid  that  nature  will  play  tricks 
or  resort  to  fraud.  And  not  only  is  the  material  which 
he  studies  always  genuine,  but  his  collaborators  in  his 
workshop  are  as  reliable,  as  far  as  good-will  and  honesty 
are  concerned,  as  he  himself. 

If  there  were  a  professor  of  science  who,  working  with 
his  students,  should  have  to  be  afraid  of  their  making 
practical  jokes  or  playing  tricks  on  him,  he  would  be  en- 
tirely lost.  If  he  weighs  his  chemical  substances,  he  is 
not  accustomed  to  watch  whether  one  of  the  boys  has  a 
scheme  to  pull  down  the  lever  of  the  scale.  Such  methods 
may  be  at  home  in  the  custom  house,  but  no  sugar  trust 
enters  into  a  theoretical  laboratory.  Everything  is  done 
in  good  faith,  and  there  is  perhaps  no  profession  which 
presupposes  the  good  faith  of  all  concerned  so  instinctively. 
The  lawyer  is  on  the  lookout,  the  physician  has  to  examine 
whether  the  hysteric  patient  is  telling  him  the  truth,  the 
business  man  hardly  expects  always  to  hear  the  whole 
truth,  the  politician  is  skeptical,  the  journalist  does  not 
believe  anything ;  but  the  scientist  lives  in  the  certainty  that 
everyone  who  enters  the  temple  of  science  considers  truth 
the  highest  godhead.  And  now  he,  with  his  bland 
naivete  and  his  training  in  blind  confidence,  is  again  and 
again  called  to  make  inquiries  which  would  demand  a 
detective  and  a  prestidigitator. 

Moreover,  the  best  scientific  work  In  one  field  is  not 


122  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

the  slightest  guarantee  for  good  observation  in  another 
field.  It  is  often  remarkable  to  what  a  degree  a  man 
who  is  a  great  scholar  in  one  division  may  be  not  only 
ignorant,  but  uneducated  in  his  attitude,  silly  in  his  judg- 
ment and  foolish  in  his  conclusions  in  fields  which  lie  out- 
side of  his  interests.  Finally,  there  must  be  much  of  a 
temperamental  factor  in  inquiries  of  this  kind.  It  is  curi- 
ous how  much  temperamental  similarity  exists  among  those 
scholars  who  have  felt  attracted  to  the  mysterious  field 
and  who  have  given  dignity  to  it  by  their  famous  names. 
They  represent  mostly  a  splendid  type  of  men,  but  men 
who  from  a  psychological  point  of  view  would  have  to 
be  labeled  as  "  negatively  suggestible."  The  psychologist 
knows  negative  suggestibility  very  well.  He  designates 
by  that  name  those  minds  which  are  inclined  to  prefer 
just  the  opposite  of  what  is  suggested  to  them.  Positively 
suggestible  persons  blindly  accept  whatever  is  offered; 
in  the  sphere  of  science  they  simply  follow  the  herd  and 
repeat  what  Is  told  by  the  master ;  they  are  entirely  under 
the  control  of  the  prevailing  opinions.  The  negatively 
suggestible  persons  do  just  the  opposite.  They  have  their 
prejudices  no  less,  but  they  have  them  just  In  favor  of  that 
which  is  the  opposite  of  the  prevailing  opinion.  If  every- 
body eats  meat,  they  believe  in  vegetarianism ;  if  everybody 
calls  the  doctor,  they  are  sure  that  healing  without  drugs 
is  right. 

What  I  saw  was  Palladlno's  regulation  perform- 
ances as  they  have  been  described  a  hundred  times.  I 
saw  them  under  favorable  conditions.     Before  she  en- 


MY  FRIENDS,  THE  SPIRITUALISTS      123 

tcred  the  room,  I  had  full  opportunity  to  examine  In  my 
naive  way  the  setting  of  the  scene.  There  was  the  usual 
partition  with  the  little  board  cabinet  built  in.  In  front  of 
the  cabinet  were  the  two  black  curtains,  behind  the  cur- 
tains in  the  cabinet  a  light  little  table,  a  guitar  and  some 
other  musical  instruments.  The  chair  in  which  the  me- 
dium was  to  sit  stood  about  a  foot  from  the  curtains  and 
in  front  of  it  the  table  at  which  she  was  to  hold  her  hands, 
a  very  light,  roughly-made  table  without  outstanding 
edges.  And  besides  eight  chairs  and  a  large  scale  for  tak- 
ing the  medium's  weight,  there  was  no  other  furniture  in 
the  room  with  the  exception  of  a  desk  at  which  a  young 
stenographer  did  her  recording  work.  The  circle  of  the 
participants  was  beyond  suspicion,  men  and  women  who 
were  honestly  interested  in  examining  the  genuineness  of 
the  phenomena.  Some  of  them  were  able  to  speak  Italian 
fluently,  an  ability  which  contributes  to  the  medium's  good 
humor.  We  examined  the  part  of  the  room  behind  the 
partition,  saw  the  electric  burglar  alarm  which  is  attached 
to  the  windows  in  order  to  exclude  the  possibility  of  out- 
side help ;  we  studied  the  arrangements  by  which  the  vari- 
ous intensities  of  light  were  produced  and  we  were  well 
supplied  with  electric  flashlights  and  similar  devices  for 
clearing  up  the  mystery. 

Mr.  Hereward  Carrington,  who  has  brought  the  me« 
dium  from  Naples  to  New  York  and  who  has  arranged 
all  the  seances,  welcomed  us  and  gave  us  every  opportunity 
to  examine  carefully  whatever  we  wanted  to  study.  He 
is  at  present  the  most  active  prophet  of  Madame  Palladino. 


124  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

His  sittings  with  her  in  Naples,  where  he  went  as  a  skeptic 
and  returned  as  an  enthusiast,  have  been  described  with 
scientific  exactitude  In  the  last  November  volume  of  the 
Proceedings  of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research  in  Eng- 
land. They  are  the  most  detailed  account  of  all  that 
happens  in  Madame  Palladino's  presence.  Mr.  Carring- 
ton  has  still  more  recently  published  a  whole  volume  on 
the  Italian  woman,  giving  the  complete  history  of  her  re- 
markable career,  and  has  succeeded  in  stirring  up  unusual 
interest  in  this  country  by  the  discussion  of  her  case  in 
magazines  and  newspapers.  There  Is  no  need  of  saying 
that  most  of  the  occurrences  which  I  have  seen,  and  which 
so  many  others  have  watched  since  Palladino's  "  controll- 
ing spirit,  John,"  took  quarters  in  New  York,  might  rather 
easily  be  understood,  if  Mr.  Carrington  himself  were  in 
the  game.  Suspicions  of  this  have  been  raised  from  many 
sides,  and  the  commercial  character  of  the  whole  enter- 
prise, constantly  covered  In  the  newspapers  by  references 
to  the  so  called  scientific  committee,  has  very  naturally 
strengthened  these  suspicions.  It  would  have  been  better 
to  have  put  that  scientific  committee  at  work  from  the  very 
start  Instead  of  postponing  its  action  more  and  more. 

I  am  glad  to  say  frankly,  that  I  consider  Mr.  Carring- 
ton beyond  suspicion.  I  have  no  telepathic  gifts  and  do 
not  know  what  Is  at  the  bottom  of  his  mind,  but  as  far  as 
my  experience  with  men  goes,  I  feel  sure  that  he  would 
not  consciously  aid  In  any  fraud.  If  he  Is  putting  on 
a  mask,  it  is  much  more  that  he  gives  himself  the  air  of  a 
scientific  inquirer,  where  his  real  attitude  has  become  that 


MY  FRIENDS,  THE  SPIRITUALISTS      125 

of  the  faithful  believer.  When  during  the  performance 
in  the  darkened  room  he  begins  in  his  broken  Italian  to  beg 
John  to  stretch  out  his  arm  behind  the  curtain,  he  seems 
much  more  in  his  natural  element  than  when  he  speaks 
about  physical  energies.  Nor  have  I  any  suspicion  of  the 
stenographer,  nor  do  I  for  a  moment  admit  the  idea  that 
anyone  climbs  in  during  the  performance.  Exactly  the 
same  performances  have  been  produced  by  our  medium 
in  rooms  in  which  there  were  no  windows  at  all  behind 
the  cabinet.  But  I  may  go  further.  Those  clumsy  tricks 
with  which  the  amateur  detectives  in  the  Sunday  papers 
have  explained  the  occurrences  are  to  be  ruled  out  too. 
It  is  simply  absurd  to  say  that  she  has  large  hooks  in  her 
sleeves  with  which  in  the  darkened  room  she  pulls  the  table 
upward.  These  good  men  do  not  even  know  that  these 
so  called  levitations  of  the  table  occur  in  full  electric  light 
with  every  chance  to  see  her  arms  and  sleeves  and  to  move 
one's  hands  between  the  table  and  her  body. 

The  first  act  of  the  performance  is  indeed  essentially 
filled  by  phenomena  of  table  lifting  in  strong,  electric  light. 
The  reports  show  that  the  circle  sometimes  has  to  sit  an 
hour  or  two  before  the  spirits  begin  their  work.  It  was 
not  so  with  us.  At  my  first  meeting  we  sat  hardly  three 
minutes  before  the  legs  of  the  table  on  one  side  began  to 
lift  themselves,  then  on  another  side,  always  falling  back 
suddenly  after  a  few  seconds,  and  finally  the  whole  table 
went  into  the  air  while  our  hands  touched  it  only  lightly 
and  her  own  hands  were  often  entirely  removed  from  its 
surface.     Little  interplays  were  given  by  mysterious  rap- 


126  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

pings  of  the  table.  Slowly  occasional  hiccoughs  indicated, 
as  we  had  often  read,  that  she  was  beginning  to  enter 
into  a  deeper  trance,  and  the  table  rapped  five  times,  which 
means  that  the  spirit  John  demands  weaker  light.  The 
room  was  darkened  and  only  a  few  seconds  later  the  second 
act  began.  It  was  still  light  enough  to  see  the  faces  of  all 
as  white  spots  In  the  room,  but  not  light  enough  to  rec- 
ognize features.  As  usual  a  strong  breeze  blew  suddenly 
from  the  cabinet.  I  felt  It  distinctly  on  my  face  and  one 
of  the  two  black  curtains  which  were  hanging  about  a  foot 
behind  the  back  of  the  medium  was  blown  on  the  table 
about  which  we  formed  our  circle.  Throughout  this  per- 
formance In  the  dark  her  two  hands,  as  well  as  her  knees 
and  her  feet,  were  held  by  two  reliable  members  of  our 
circle.  The  curtain  was  put  back  and  very  soon  the  little 
table  In  the  cabinet  behind  the  curtain  was  thrown  up  and 
fell  down  on  the  floor  with  a  loud  crash,  and  one  dramatic 
event  followed  another. 

In  the  meantime,  four  raps  of  the  table  In  the  well- 
known  signal  code  of  the  spirits  kept  giving  the  order  that 
the  members  of  the  circle  should  talk  more.  Suddenly 
the  little  table  began  to  creep  out  of  the  cabinet  into  the 
sitting-room,  the  guitar  gave  out  some  tones,  and  her  im- 
mediate left-hand  and  right-hand  neighbors  were  touched 
sometimes  on  the  arm,  sometimes  on  the  back,  and  some- 
times they  felt  a  hand  pull  their  sleeve.  Now  the  little 
table  began  to  climb  up  from  the  floor  and  to  reach  as 
high  as  the  elbow  of  one  of  us,  and  finally  John  pressed 
his  hand  and  arm  from  the  cabinet  against  the  curtain.     I 


MY  FRIENDS,  THE  SPIRITUALISTS     127 

myself  had  left  the  circle  and  stood  behind  the  medium 
with  a  hand  on  the  curtain,  and  distinctly  felt  how  the  cur- 
tain bulged  out  with  strong  energy.  I  should  not  have 
called  it  the  arm  of  John,  but  I  did  feel  a  sensation  as  If  a 
mysterious  balloon  was  heavily  pressing  against  the  curtain 
from  behind.  In  short,  I  have  seen  with  my  own  eyes 
and  heard  with  my  own  ears  and  felt  with  my  own  epi- 
dermis the  essentials  of  those  phenomena  which  have  con- 
verted men  like  Lombroso  and  after  him  so  many  other  sci- 
entists. Yet  I  for  one  am  no  nearer  to  spiritualism  than 
I  ever  have  been.  And  if  some  of  my  spiritualistic  friends 
claim  that  I  ought  to  have  waited  until  still  stronger  phe- 
nomena appeared,  like  those  which  occurred  so  often  in 
Naples  and  part  of  which  can  be  seen  in  Carrington's  re- 
port, I  venture  to  contradict.  After  seeing  the  milder 
feats  I  had  not  the  slightest  doubt  that  the  more  surprising 
acts  have  been  observed  by  the  describers.  It  makes  not 
the  slightest  difference  whether  I  personally  see  the  hand 
coming  out  and  ringing  a  bell  and  the  arms  growing  out 
of  the  shoulder  and  the  head  of  the  medium  looking  over 
the  curtain  with  a  neck  three  feet  long.  I  am  sure  that 
if  I  had  spent  some  weeks  more  I,  too,  should  have  ex- 
perienced these  extreme  performances  which  I  can  so 
easily  imagine  from  the  printed  reports.  If  I  had  seen 
them  all  myself,  my  stand  toward  the  whole  matter  would 
not  have  been  changed,  and  my  opinions  are  based  as 
much  on  what  others  observed  as  on  what  I  myself  found. 
Yes,  I  confess  that  I  should  be  less  skeptical  if  those 
stronger  occurrences  did  not  exist  and  if  nothing  hap- 


128  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

pened  but  that  which  arose  in  my  presence.  I  am  afraid 
the  more  convincing  in  the  eyes  of  the  spiritualists  my 
seances  might  have  been,  the  less  they  would  have  con- 
vinced me. 

After  all,  what  is  the  situation?  A  table  is  moving  with- 
out any  visible  contact.  According  to  the  bolder  theory, 
it  happens  by  the  action  of  a  spirit.  But  more  conserva- 
tive thinkers  say  that  It  is  simply  an  unproved  theory  that 
these  movements  are  brought  about  by  the  spirits.  Other 
facts,  they  say,  may  make  such  a  theory  .probable,  but  the 
movements  themselves  only  suggest  that  a  physical  energy 
is  at  work  there  which  science  does  not  know  as  yet,  a 
supernormal  function  of  the  organism.  If  we  ask  why 
only  so  few  persons  have  this  energy  by  which  tables  and 
chairs  can  be  made  to  move  through  the  air  without  con- 
tact, we  justly  hear  that  we  have  no  right  to  prescribe  to 
nature  which  substances  shall  have  particular  powers. 
Have  we  not  discovered  quite  peculiar  energies,  for  in- 
stance, in  radium  and  thorium  which  no  other  substances 
in  the  world  have?  Radium  is  not  the  trillionth  part  of 
the  earth.  Why  may  it  not  be  that  among  hundreds  of 
millions  of  men  just  one  or  another  organism  has  peculiar 
powers  too?  And  If  we  modestly  answer  that  we  cannot 
understand  a  kind  of  physical  energy  which  would  work 
in  such  a  surprising  way,  then  wc  are  sure  to  open  the  whole 
flood  of  eloquence  which  has  so  often  streamed  through  the 
spiritistic  sermons.  Did  we  know  of  wireless  telegraphy 
a  hundred  years  ago?  Did  we  know  of  hypnotism? 
Did  we  know  the  Roentgen  rays?     Has  not  every  day 


MY  FRIENDS,  THE  SPIRITUALISTS      129 

brought  us  entirely  new  discoveries?  Has  not  the  whole 
view  of  the  physical  world  been  changed  in  every  century? 
Have  we  a  right  to  prescribe  that  just  this  kind  of  energy 
has  no  place  in  the  household  of  physical  nature?  Ought 
we  not  to  take  a  more  modest  attitude,  willing  to  learn  ? 

We  have  heard  this  so  often  that  it  has  thrown  a  kind 
of  spell  on  all  of  us  and  we  arc  ready  to  follow  on  this 
path.  All  right,  we  say.  So  far,  we  have  not  the  slight- 
est idea  how  an  organism  can  irradiate  this  kind  of  energy, 
but  the  future  may  bring  us  more  light.  But  now  our 
friends  the  spiritualists  to  whom  we  have  given  our  little 
finger  grasp  at  once  for  the  whole  hand  and  in  the  next 
moment  they  have  the  entire  arm.  If  such  a  woman  has 
an  energy  to  move  the  table,  an  energy  which  we  do  not 
yet  understand  and  which  no  physicist  has  recognized,  can 
not  this  energy  also  move  the  air  sufficiently  to  bulge  the 
curtains  and  to  pick  the  strings  of  a  guitar,  and  to  touch  the 
shoulder  of  a  neighbor  and  to  make  a  wind  blow  out  of 
her  forehead?  Of  course  it  can.  But,  add  our  friends, 
is  it  not  very  arbitrary  to  stop  there?  If  there  is  a  mys- 
terious power  which  moves  the  air,  this  means  that  it 
pushes  the  molecules  and  atoms  in  the  universe  under  the 
control  of  the  woman's  body.  Is  there  any  different  prin- 
ciple involved,  if  we  frankly  admit  that  one  new  grouping 
of  the  molecules  is  then  just  as  possible  as  another?  We 
cannot  deny  it;  and  here  we  are  landed  where  our  friends 
want  to  bring  us.  If  a  hand  or  an  arm  appears  through 
the  curtain,  is  it  anything  else  but  a  special  grouping  of 
molecules?     Could  not  that  energy  group  the  atoms  in 


I30  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

such  a  way  that  they  appear  as  a  new  face?  Must  we  not 
therefore  acknowledge  that  It  is  simply  a  more  complex 
case  of  such  unknown  energy  which  shows  the  materializa- 
tion of  persons  of  whom  the  medium  Is  thinking?  Those 
persons  may  not  have  Independent  existence  of  their  own. 
Perhaps  they  can  materialize  only  through  the  thought  of 
the  woman  who  has  these  mysterious  powers.  All  this 
is  quite  justified.  If  we  allow  the  first  step,  it  may  indeed 
be  difficult  to  say  why  we  should  hesitate  before  the  hun- 
dredth step  in  that  direction.  If  we  accept  the  principle, 
we  must  accept  the  consequences.  Our  surprise  at  the 
hands  and  faces  which  fly  through  the  air  In  the  darkened 
room  and  touch  us  on  the  shoulder  and  kiss  us  on  the  cheeks 
is  no  wiser  than  the  surprise  of  an  African  savage  who 
sees  a  locomotive  or  an  airship. 

All  right.  But  let  us  at  least  understand  clearly  that  if 
we  accept  this  revised  universe,  then  really  nothing  of 
value  remains  In  that  poor  sham  edition  of  the  world  with 
which  science  and  scholarship  have  wasted  their  efforts 
so  far.  If  at  any  moment  a  third  arm  can  grow  out  of 
our  shoulders  in  order  to  tickle  a  neighbor,  and  If  a 
woman  can  prolong  her  neck  three  feet  In  order  to  show 
her  face  over  the  curtain,  if  a  head  can  suddenly  become 
as  small  as  a  fist  and  then  bulge  out  again,  then  it  Is  simply 
silly  to  fill  our  libraries  with  that  old-fashioned  knowledge 
which  so  far  we  have  called  physics  and  biology.  From 
the  standpoint  of  natural  science  we  have  to  begin  anew. 
We  must  go  back  to  a  view  of  nature  which  fits  well  into 
the  ideas  of  the  savages  all  over  the  globe,  and  the  effort 


MY  FRIENDS,  THE  SPIRITUALISTS      131 

of  mankind  to  work  out  a  sort  of  knowledge  which  is  to 
eliminate  the  spirit  theories  of  the  primitive  peoples  has 
been  nothing  but  a  colossal  blunder.  We  may  be  ready 
to  acknowledge  that;  but  can  we  really  be  blamed  if  before 
this  death  sentence  on  the  scientific  reason  is  fulfilled  our 
condemned  intellect  at  least  makes  use  of  every  possible 
reprieve  and  of  every  opportunity  to  insist  on  a  new  trial? 
Is  it  really  surprising  if  before  we  give  up  hope  altogether, 
we  cry  out,  "  Fraud  I  " 

Those  who  think  that  fraud  is  a  harsh  word  and  who 
think  that  it  would  be  nicer  to  admit  that  a  table  may  hft 
its  legs,  really  ought  to  keep  those  enormous  consequences 
in  mind.  And  those  who  smilingly  say,  "  Of  course  the 
hands  and  faces  and  the  materializations  arc  humbug,  but 
the  minor  things  may  be  admitted,"  cannot  blame  us  if 
we  apply  their  own  principle  for  the  whole  field  and  ask 
at  first  in  all  modesty:  are  we  not  victims  of  claptrap  and 
tricks?  I  know  the  reply :  "  Show  us  the  tricks  I  "  But 
would  it  really  be  a  proof  that  there  is  no  trick  Involved 
even  if  I  had  no  hypothesis? 

Hundreds  of  thousands  have  seen  HoudinI  and  have 
not  the  slightest  idea  how  he  Is  performing  his  feats.  I 
acknowledge  frankly  that  when  I  grasped  the  curtain  be- 
hind Madame  Palladino's  back  and  suddenly  felt  there  a 
sort  of  balloon  or  bag  pressing  against  my  hand  I  was 
startled  and  had  no  Idea  how  she  did  It.  It  reminded  me 
of  a  similar  feeling  which  I  had  a  depresslngly  long  while 
ago.  I  was  seven  years  old.  It  was  in  my  native  town 
at  the  yearly  fair  and  I  was  sitting  In  the  first  row  in  the 


132  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

tent  of  a  magician.  He  suddenly  took  my  hat  and  pulled 
a  lot  of  ribbons  out  of  it.  I  laughed  and  felt  sure  that  it 
was  a  trick,  but  just  before  he  was  to  return  my  hat,  right 
before  my  eyes  he  pushed  his  finger  through  the  crown. 
I  distinctly  saw  how  it  pierced  through  it  and  I  felt  sure 
that  my  new  hat  was  ruined.  A  moment  later  the  hat  was 
safe  in  my  hands  with  not  the  slightest  hole  in  it,  and  I 
have  never  understood  how  he  did  it.  My  lasting  won- 
der became  less  torturing,  however,  when  I  heard  later 
that  the  apparatus  for  that  trick  costs  two  dollars  and 
fifty  cents.  To  be  sure  if  it  is  fraud,  an  abundance  of 
ever-changing  schemes  must  be  supplied.  Every  moment 
must  suggest  new  tricks,  and  only  a  woman  with  unusual 
skill,  unusual  talent,  unusual  strength,  unusual  resource- 
fulness and  unusual  ability  to  deceive  and  to  mislead  could 
go  through  these  performances  undetected  for  a  single 
evening.     But  just  such  a  woman  is  Madame  Palladino. 

The  first  impression  of  the  whole  sitting  is  one  of  an 
atmosphere  of  trickery.  The  performance  goes  on  in  a 
hall  which  abounds  in  psychics  and  clairvoyants  and  the 
room  itself  suggests  the  cheapest  claptrap.  Yet  as  I  said, 
I  have  not  the  least  suspicion  of  outside  help.  But  now 
the  performance  begins.  She  had  not  held  her  foot  on 
mine  two  minutes,  and  I  believed  from  my  touch  sensations 
that  she  had  not  removed  it  at  all,  before  I  discovered 
with  my  hand  that  she  had  exchanged  her  feet.  I  do  not 
know  how  she  did  it  so  rapidly  without  my  noticing  it. 
Furthermore,  I  was  sure  that  her  hand  was  holding  mine, 
her  fingers  lying  on  the  back  of  my  hand.     Only  in  a 


MY  FRIENDS,  THE  SPIRITUALISTS      133 

natural  way  from  time  to  time  to  change  the  fatiguing  po- 
sition she  removed  it  just  for  an  instant,  and  if  I  had  not 
watched  it  carefully,  I  should  have  entirely  disregarded 
such  a  momentary  interruption  of  the  tactual  sensation. 
And  yet  I  found  that  for  her  even  such  a  moment  was 
sufficient  to  make  a  quick  movement  toward  her  body. 
She  has  a  control  of  her  muscle  system  which  is  simply 
marvelous.  Even  if  she  raps  the  top  of  the  table  with 
her  knuckles,  she  can  produce  sounds  of  an  intensity  which 
is  astonishing,  and  which  indicate  a  strength  of  her  motor 
apparatus  that  no  one  would  expect  in  her.  In  a  corre- 
sponding way  her  senses  are  evidently  hyperaesthetic.  It 
seems  to  me  that  the  sharp  reaction  movements  with  which 
she  responds  to  any  sudden  light  are  not  simulated,  and  I 
suppose,  therefore,  that  she  has  unusual  powers  of  dis- 
crimination. While  she  apparently  hardly  watched  the 
company  she  observed  most  carefully  every  little  occur- 
rence, and  evidently  can  always  rely  on  an  abnormal  sensi- 
tiveness of  her  ears. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  the  conditions  are  of  a  kind  that 
even  the  best  senses  could  not  notice  a  change,  she  is  just  as 
little  able  as  any  normal  person  to  find  out  a  deception. 
Then  she  herself  becomes  the  victim,  as  if  no  spirits  assisted 
her.  To  give  a  typical  illustration :  When  the  room  was 
light  and  everything  depended  upon  the  greatest  concen- 
tration of  our  attention  on  the  table  in  order  to  prevent 
our  noticing  any  tricks  which  she  might  perform  with  the 
curtain,  she  told  us  repeatedly  that  nothing  could  happen 
if  we  broke  the  chain.     That  is,  each  must  touch  with  his 


134  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

hands  the  hands  of  his  two  neighbors ;  as  soon  as  she  saw 
that  the  chain  was  interrupted,  the  phenomena  stopped. 
But  when  she  did  not  see  it,  the  interruption  had  not  the 
slightest  effect.  In  agreement  with  one  of  my  neighbors, 
we  held  our  hands  so  that  from  across  the  table  it  looked 
as  If  we  were  touching,  while  in  reality  we  bent  our  fingers 
inward  and  had  several  inches  distance  between  our  hands. 
During  that  period  of  breaking  the  chain,  the  phenomena 
came  plentifully  and  she  herself  repeated  that  they  came 
because  the  chain  was  good.  But  as  I  said  she  was  always 
carefully  on  the  lookout.  In  my  first  seance  when  I  stood 
at  thfe  curtain,  she  promised  that  the  hand  of  John  would 
grasp  me  through  the  curtain  from  the  inside  of  the  cabinet, 
and  she  made  all  the  preparations  which  suggested  that 
John  was  willing.  But  with  her  quick  side-glance  she  evi- 
dently noticed  that  I  did  not  stand  there  as  motionless  as  at 
first  appeared  to  her.  In  the  almost  complete  darkness  I 
was  slowly  moving  my  leg  upward,  standing  on  one  foot 
and  moving  the  other  up  as  high  as  her  shoulder,  covering 
the  space  between  her  and  the  curtain.  From  the  moment 
of  her  head  movement  which  I  recognized  in  the  faint 
light,  John  changed  his  Intentions  and  I  waited  In  vain  for 
the  curtain  performance. 

I  do  not  In  the  least  wish  to  suggest  that  I  really  know 
how  she  Is  doing  all  of  her  tricks.  Some  facts  were  to 
me  extremely  suspicious.  I  noticed,  for  Instance,  while 
I  was  sitting  at  her  side,  that  every  time  before  a  levitation 
of  the  table  began,  she  arranged  something  between  her 
knees  under  her  clothes.     It  was  often  only  a  quick  move- 


MY  FRIENDS,  THE  SPIRITUALISTS      135 

ment  as  if  she  were  pressing  a  button,  but  I  never  saw  the 
levitation  without  such  a  preparatory  action,  though  the 
knees  themselves  which  I  held  with  my  hand  were  kept  en- 
tirely quiet.  Moreover,  frequently  she  arranged  the  folds 
of  her  skirt  around  the  legs  of  the  table  as  If  some  forceps 
were  to  hold  the  table  leg  from  below  the  gown.  Yet  I 
acknowledge  frankly  that  I  saw  some  movements  of  the 
table  in  which  I  could  not  discover  any  contact  with  her 
clothes.  But  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  most  char- 
acteristic feature  of  her  performances  is  just  the  unexpected 
variety.  Phenomena  occur  just  in  the  instant  when  you  do 
not  expect  them  and  when  your  attention  Is  turned  to 
something  else.  When  you  think  that  the  right  leg  of  the 
table  will  rise  up,  suddenly  the  left  legs  are  in  the  air,  and 
as  soon  as  you  have  ever  seen  the  whole  table  going  into 
the  air,  you  entirely  forget  that  the  lifting  of  two  legs  only 
can  just  as  well  be  produced  by  tilting  it  under  the  pressure 
of  the  hand.  In  short,  the  many  things  which  you  forget, 
or  to  which  you  do  not  attend,  or  which  you  wrongly  ex- 
pect, or  which  you  mix  up,  or  which  you  involuntarily 
Inhibit,  or  which  you  supplement  by  your  imagination 
play  an  extremely  large  part  in  the  whole  performance. 
We  must  keep  in  mind  that  we  have  to  do  with  a  woman 
who  has  specialized  in  these  very  performances  for  thirty 
years.  Always  the  same  silly,  freakish,  senseless  pranks 
repeated  on  thousands  of  nights  before  small  groups  of 
more  or  less  superstitious  people  under  conditions  of  her 
own  arrangement,  conditions  entirely  different  from  ordi- 
nary life,  with  poor  illumination  and  with  complete  free- 


136  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

dom  to  do  just  what  she  pleases.  Is  It  surprising  that  a 
certain  virtuosity  is  secured  which  understands  how  to  ad- 
just the  performance  in  every  moment  to  the  special  people 
and  their  special  mood  and  to  be  prepared  for  every  new 
emergency?  Nevertheless,  not  everyone  would  be  able 
to  learn  the  trade  which  is  paid  at  the  rate  of  five  hundred 
francs  an  evening.  She  is  a  great  artist,  and  as  a  vaude- 
ville show  she  may  be  at  the  head  of  the  profession,  but  I 
do  not  see  how  she  can  overcome  in  any  cool  observer  the 
feeling  that  it  is  trickery. 

If  I  abstract  from  my  own  chance  experiences  and  think 
of  that  large  storehouse  which  Mr.  Carrington  and  his 
friends  have  filled  with  their  careful  observations  and  of 
all  those  wonderful  feats  which  impressed  Flammarion 
and  Lombroso  and  so  many  others,  my  suspicions  would, 
on  the  whole,  turn  in  two  directions.  In  the  first  place, 
she  certainly  tries  to  set  free  one  hand  or  one  foot  and 
with  them  to  produce  a  number  of  phenomena.  It  is 
not  by  chance  that  the  spirit  John,  however  manifold 
and  convincing  his  performances  may  be,  has  never  suc- 
ceeded in  doing  anything  which  was  more  than  three 
feet  distant  from  the  body  of  the  medium.  And  sec- 
ondly, I  think  that  her  comfortable  black  cloth  gown  with 
which  she  sits  in  the  dark  before  the  black  curtain  protects 
a  number  of  skillful  technical  devices  which  she  controls 
by  her  muscles.  Now  it  is  true  that  her  observers  assure 
us  constantly  that  such  cannot  be  the  case  because  her  hands 
are  held,  her  feet  are  held  and  her  knees  are  held.  She 
would  therefore  be  unable  to  work  the  instrument  even 


MY  FRIENDS,  THE  SPIRITUALISTS      137 

If  It  were  hidden  on  her  body.  But  that  Is  a  very  mis- 
leading objection.  Let  us  remember  how  the  Oriental 
women  dance.  They  call  it  dancing  when  their  feet  may 
be  standing  quiet  on  one  spot  and  their  hands  may  be  quiet 
behind  their  heads.  The  muscles  of  the  abdomen  and 
of  the  chest  are  nevertheless  effective  and  can  be  just 
as  well  regulated  to  do  as  exact  work  as  the  hands  and 
feet.  Moreover,  there  would  be  room  for  a  pair  of  bel- 
lows between  arm  and  chest  or  between  the  legs,  and  such 
bellows  in  connection  with  a  little  tube  system  could  quite 
well  produce  most  of  the  phenomena. 

The  most  curious  group  of  her  phenomena  is  that  of 
producing  a  breeze  either  under  her  gown  so  that  the  skirt 
suddenly  bulges  out  or  on  the  curtain  so  that  the  curtain 
flies  into  the  room,  or  from  her  hair.  It  is  evident  that 
any  slight  connection  of  a  rubber  or  metal  tube  with  a  pair 
of  bellows  under  the  arm  or  under  the  bodice  could  produce 
such  effects  without  any  movement  of  hands  or  feet.  It 
is  in  harmony  with  this  view  that  all  the  breezes  around  her 
occur  together  with  violent  contractions  of  her  whole  body. 
Whenever  she  is  preparing  an  unusual  event,  she  is  strain- 
ing her  arms  with  all  her  unusual  force.  She  herself  and 
her  friends  interpret  it  as  a  pumping  up  of  spiritual  en- 
ergy. It  seems  to  me  more  probable  that  she  cannot  pro- 
duce those  stronger  abdominal  muscle  effects  without  con- 
tracting at  the  same  time  the  arms  and  legs.  Even  the 
hiccough  with  which  her  deeper  trance  begins  speaks  in 
favor  of  this,  as  it  Is  a  cramp  in  the  diaphragm  which 
may  result  from  the  abdominal  action.     There  is  hardly 


138  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

a  doubt  that  she  is  really  exhausted  at  the  end  of  every 
seance,  and  that  she  is  in  full  perspiration.  It  certainly 
is  not  easy  work.  Finally,  let  us  not  forget  that  the 
more  surprising  phenomena  almost  never  occur  at  the 
first  seances.  Only  when  Madame  Palladino  has  worked 
with  the  same  persons  repeatedly  do  the  better  events 
arise.  There  were  no  heads  for  me,  but  I  should  certainly 
have  worked  up  to  those  heads  if  I  had  as  much  time 
for  this  as  some  of  my  predecessors.  She  becomes  slowly 
acquainted  with  the  tendencies,  suspicions  and  inclinations 
of  her  clients,  and  those  clients  in  spite  of  their  best  will 
become  more  and  more  suggestible.  As  soon  as  a  few 
unexplained  events  have  occurred  in  the  first  seance,  the 
second  is  approached  with  a  greater  willingness  to  accept 
the  miraculous,  and  the  attention  is  more  easily  diverted, 
so  that  some  points  which  at  first  would  have  been  watched 
are  now  disregarded. 

It  is  true  Madame  Palladino  has  been  asked  to  undress 
a  few  times,  and  she  also  generously  permitted  the  ladies 
of  our  seances  to  examine  her  clothes.  The  Naples  report 
tells  in  detail  how  she  went  to  the  outer  room  with  two 
ladies  and  took  off  some  of  her  clothes.  Of  course,  all 
that  means  nothing  whatever.  First,  those  bellows,  of 
which  I  have  suspicions,  might  be  embedded  in  such  a 
way  that  when  they  are  empty  of  air  they  would  appear 
to  be  a  mere  lining,  and  even  metal  tubes  might  appear 
to  be  simply  wires  at  the  belt.  And  moreover,  a  woman 
of  such  wonderful  resourcefulness  would  really  not  have 
the  slightest  difficulty  in  undressing  slowly  in  such  a  way 


MY  FRIENDS,  THE  SPIRITUALISTS      139 

that  whatever  she  wanted  to  hide  could  be  removed  or 
kept  hidden  on  her  body  Itself,  so  that  a  few  untrained 
ladies  might  easily  be  deceived.  It  Is  most  wonderful 
how  her  charm  and  humor  remove  all  indiscreet  curiosity. 
To  be  sure  when  two  ladies  of  our  party  at  the  beginning 
of  the  second  evening  of  my  seances  examined  her  clothes 
rather  carefully  behind  the  partition,  they  did  not  find 
any  bellows,  but  just  this  result  favors  my  theory,  since 
after  the  search,  throughout  the  whole  long  evening, 
not  the  slightest  breeze  was  felt,  no  bulging,  no  wind 
from  the  hair  or  below  the  table.  Evidently  the  apparatus 
was  removed  when  the  undressing  began  and  could  not 
be  restored.  On  the  other  evening,  the  wind  blew  every 
few  minutes. 

Of  course,  I  may  be  on  an  entirely  wrong  track  and 
the  mechanism  may  be  of  quite  a  different  order.  But 
I  have  not  the  least  sympathy  with  those  who  tell  me 
that  even  though  every  single  one  of  her  acts  might  be 
explained  by  some  complex  trick,  we  must  after  all  ac- 
knowledge that  there  is  something  genuine,  because  it  is 
so  much  simpler  to  settle  all  by  one  common  explanation 
through  an  unknown  mystical  energy  than  to  invent  a 
complicated  theory  of  tricks  for  every  single  feat.  This 
Is  just  that  misleading  way  of  arguing  for  which  the 
world  has  so  often  had  to  pay  the  penalty.  There  are 
too  many  people  who  always  believe  that  if  there  are 
many  cases  of  which  each  one  is  almost  proved,  their 
cumulation  Is  a  complete  proof.  As  long  as  each  case 
in  itself  still  allows  the  slightest  possibility  of  a  different 


I40  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

interpretation,  the  whole  sum  of  the  cases  remains  un- 
convincing. We  know  how  long  it  was  demonstrated 
that  life  could  develop  itself  out  of  unliving  substance, 
because  it  was  so  often  shown  that  animals  originated 
in  water  in  which  there  was  almost  no  chance  that  germs 
had  entered  from  without.  A  thousand  such  almosts 
did  not  help.  When  really  the  entrance  of  germs  is 
absolutely  prevented,   organisms  have  never  developed. 

As  long  as  there  is  a  possibility  of  explaining  every 
single  miraculous  event  in  some  way  by  some  kind  of 
trick  hypothesis,  we  need  not  be  afraid  that  the  mere 
summing  up  of  ten  thousand  such  cases  is  a  demonstration 
that  causal  explanation  is  not  in  order.  I  have  my  doubts 
whether  a  complete  demonstration  of  Madame  Palladino's 
methods  will  ever  be  possible.  She  will  not  work  under 
other  conditions  than  those  which  she  by  long  training 
and  adjustment  has  found  to  be  most  favorable  for  her 
game,  and  under  such  conditions  an  investigation  in  the 
highest  sense  of  the  word  is  entirely  impossible.  More- 
over, the  fact  that  she  is  at  liberty  at  any  moment  to 
change  the  program  and  to  bring  in  always  the  unex- 
pected numbers  of  the  show  enhances  the  difficulties. 

I  have  not  even  sympathy  with  the  efforts  to  raise  the 
level  of  the  investigation  by  introducing  subtle  physical 
instruments.  That  gives  to  the  manifestations  an  unde- 
served dignity  and  withdraws  the  attention  from  the 
center  of  the  field.  The  events  are  treated  as  If  a  really 
new  energy  were  involved  which  we  should  study  in  the 
way  in  which  we  examine  the  Becquerel  rays.     An  exact 


MY  FRIENDS,  THE  SPIRITUALISTS      141 

measurement  of  those  movements  only  shifts  the  attention 
away  from  the  woman  and  her  inexhaustible  supply  of 
tricks.  I  was  delighted  at  seeing  a  little  letter  scale  in 
the  room.  It  had  been  used  to  find  out  whether  by 
merely  holding  her  hands  on  each  side  of  the  little  tray 
in  which  the  letter  is  usually  placed  she  would  be  able 
to  produce  a  pressure.  I  felt  that  that  would  be  a  very 
clean  demonstration.  I  heard  that  Madame  Palladino 
had  really  been  asked  for  that  demonstration.  It  was 
a  new  task,  but  with  her  wonderful  quickness  she  had 
found  her  way  out.  She  held  her  hands  on  each  side  of 
the  tray;  the  scale  showed  that  a  mystical  pressure  was 
exerted  on  the  top  of  the  tray,  and  one  of  the  observers 
with  his  high  scientific  carefulness  moved  his  finger  around 
the  tray  and  convinced  himself  that  there  was  nowhere  a 
contact  between  the  hands  and  the  plate.  But  the  nar- 
rator added  that  he  himself  had  seen  that  she  had  a  hair 
tied  to  her  two  little  fingers  and  the  hair  pulled  on  the 
lower  part  of  the  scale  while  the  little  fingers  moved  down- 
ward. No  physical  instruments  can  measure  such  trickery 
unless  we  first  learn  an  entirely  new  adjustment,  for  which 
the  scientist  as  such  has  no  schooling.  A  master  detective 
might  do  better. 

Of  course,  there  will  be  some  who  in  reply  will  fall 
back  on  their  old  outcry  that  all  this  is  dogmatism  and 
that  instead  of  mere  theories  of  explanations  they  want 
actual  proof.  I  am  afraid  I  must  be  still  clearer  there. 
I  must  report  what  happened  at  the  last  meeting  which  I 
attended. 


142  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

One  week  before  Christmas  at  the  midnight  hour  I 
sat  again  at  Madame  Palladino's  favorite  left  side  and 
a  well-known  scientist  on  her  right.  We  had  her  under 
strictest  supervision.  Her  left  hand  grasped  my  hand, 
her  right  hand  was  held  by  her  right  neighbor,  her  left 
foot  rested  on  my  foot  while  her  right  was  pressing  the 
foot  of  her  other  neighbor.  For  an  hour  the  regulation 
performance  had  gone  on.  But  now  we  sat  in  the 
darkened  room  In  the  highest  expectancy  while  Mr. 
Carrington  begged  John  to  touch  my  arm  and  then  to 
lift  the  table  in  the  cabinet  behind  her;  and  John  really 
came.  He  touched  me  distinctly  on  my  hip  and  then 
on  my  arm  and  at  last  he  pulled  my  sleeve  at  the  elbow. 
I  plainly  felt  the  thumb  and  the  fingers.  It  was  most 
uncanny.  And  finally,  John  was  to  lift  the  table  in  the 
cabinet.  We  held  both  her  hands,  we  felt  both  her 
feet,  and  yet  the  table  three  feet  behind  her  began  to 
scratch  the  floor  and  we  expected  it  to  be  lifted.  But 
instead,  there  suddenly  came  a  wild,  yelling  scream.  It 
was  such  a  scream  as  I  have  never  heard  before  in  my 
life,  not  even  in  Sarah  Bernhardt's  most  thrilling  scenes. 

What  had  happened?  Neither  the  medium  nor  Mr. 
Carrington  had  the  slightest  idea  that  a  man  was  lying  flat 
on  the  floor  and  had  succeeded  in  slipping  noiselessly  like  a 
snail  below  the  curtain  into  the  cabinet.  I  had  told  him 
that  I  expected  wires  stretched  out  from  her  body  and  he 
looked  out  for  them.  What  a  surprise  when  he  saw  that 
she  had  simply  freed  her  foot  from  her  shoe  and  with 
^n  athletic  backward  movement  of  the  leg  was  reaching 


MY  FRIENDS,  THE  SPIRITUALISTS      143 

out  and  fishing  with  her  toes  for  the  guitar  and  the  table 
in  the  cabinet!  And  then  lying  on  the  floor  he  grasped 
her  foot  and  caught  her  heel  with  a  firm  hand,  and  she 
responded  with  that  wild  scream  which  indicated  that  she 
knew  that  at  last  she  was  trapped  and  her  glory  shattered. 

Her  achievement  was  splendid.  She  had  lifted  her  un- 
shod foot  to  the  height  of  my  arm  when  she  touched  me 
under  cover  of  the  curtain,  without  changing  in  the  least 
the  position  of  her  body.  When  her  foot  played  thumb 
and  fingers  the  game  was  also  neat  throughout.  To  be 
sure,  I  remember  before  she  was  to  reach  out  for  the 
table  behind  her,  she  suddenly  felt  the  need  of  touching 
my  left  hand  too,  and  for  that  purpose  she  leaned  heavily 
over  the  table  at  which  we  were  sitting.  She  said  that 
she  must  do  it  because  her  spiritual  fluid  had  become  too 
strong  and  the  touch  would  relieve  her.  As  a  matter 
of  course,  in  leaning  forward  with  the  upper  half  of  her 
body  she  became  able  to  push  her  foot  further  backward 
and  thus  to  reach  the  light  table,  which  probably  stood 
a  few  inches  too  far  away. 

After  this  scream,  at  least  let  us  not  repeat  the  ridicu- 
lous excuse  that  she  sometimes  uses  tricks  when  by  chance 
genuine  phenomena  do  not  arise,  but  that  she  can  perform 
the  same  acts  at  other  times  by  mere  spiritual  powers. 
No.  We  had  here  the  perfectly  typical  performance. 
Everything  occurred  in  exactly  the  same  style  as  in  previ- 
ous seances  and  the  conditions  of  supervision  were  the 
best  which  she  allows  at  all.  To  put  your  foot  on  hers 
is   never   allowed,    as   the   poor   woman   has   a   nervous 


144  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

"  weakness  "  in  her  Instep.  Thus  the  only  allowed  super- 
vision of  her  feet  is  in  being  sure  all  the  time  that  her 
foot  is  on  yours.  I  did  indeed  feel  her  shoe  all  the  time. 
When  the  scream  occurred  and  her  foot  was  caught,  I 
distinctly  felt  that  her  shoe  was  pressing  my  foot.  A 
hook  on  the  right  shoe  probably  pressed  down  the  empty 
left  shoe.  If  her  foot  had  not  been  caught  that  per- 
formance would  have  been  the  best  in  the  whole  seance 
and  the  cabinet  mysteries  worked  In  our  presence  would 
never  have  been  under  stricter  conditions.  Moreover, 
this  foot  performance  without  any  motion  of  the  upper 
half  of  the  body  evidently  presupposes  a  continued  and 
perfect  training.  Here  she  was  trapped  for  the  first 
time  In  an  act  which  cannot  possibly  be  explained  as  an 
accidental  occurrence;  such  marvellous  athletics  must  be 
explained  as  a  regular  lifework.  Her  greatest  wonders 
are  absolutely  nothing  but  fraud  and  humbug;  this  is  no 
longer  a  theory  but  a  proven  fact. 

I  have  spoken  of  fraud,  and  yet  I  do  not  want  to  be 
misunderstood.  I  do  not  think  It  at  all  necessary,  indeed, 
I  even  consider  it  improbable  that  Madame  Palladino, 
In  her  normal  state  Is  fully  conscious  of  this  fraud.  I 
rather  suppose  it  to  be  a  case  of  a  complex  hysteria  in 
which  a  splitting  of  the  personality  has  set  in.  We  know 
to-day  that  the  hysteric  double  personality  has  no 
mysterious  character  whatever,  that  it  results  from 
certain  abnormal  inhibitions  in  the  brain  —  pathological 
disturbances  which  are  nearly  related  to  the  phenomena 
of  attention,  of  sleep,  of  hypnotism,  and  so  on.     Such 


MY  FRIENDS,  THE  SPIRITUALISTS      145 

a  split-off  personality  may  enter  into  the  most  complex 
preparations  of  trickeries  and  frauds,  may  carry  them 
through  with  a  marvelous  alertness,  and  yet  as  soon  as 
the  normal  personality  awakes,  the  whole  hysteric  action 
is  forgotten.  I  suppose  that  a  hysteric  disease  with  com- 
plex anesthesias  is  responsible  for  her  whole  life  history. 
When  as  a  little  girl  she  saw  the  chairs  and  tables  moving 
around  her  while  she  was  sweeping  the  room,  she  prob- 
ably passed  through  experiences  which  she  interpreted  in 
the  way  most  natural  to  her.  What  really  happened 
was  probably  that  she  violently  moved  the  furniture  with- 
out perceiving  her  own  movements  and  without  intention. 
Her  lower  brain-centers  had  reached  a  hysteric  inde- 
pendence and  from  this  simple  starting-point  probably 
that  complex  secondary  personality  developed  itself,  and 
I  sincerely  believe  that  she  is  fully  convinced  of  her  own 
mysterious  powers.  It  is  not  she  who  plays  the  tricks; 
it  is  her  irresponsible  split-off  consciousness  which  focuses 
on  those  silly  performances.  It  is  a  fraud  for  which  no 
one  is  to  be  blamed  as  It  belongs  in  the  sphere  of  the 
hospital. 

Our  friends  have  one  refuge  left.  They  tell  us  that 
our  stubborn  will  to  detect  fraud  instead  of  acknowledg- 
ing mystic  powers  Is  a  kind  of  philosophical  short- 
sightedness. It  is  an  over-estimation,  they  say,  of 
natural  science  and  the  merely  physical  aspect  of  the 
universe.  They  denounce  it  as  materialism,  if  we  try 
to  resist  their  theory  of  spirit  materialization.  But  I  am 
afraid  their  last  defense  is  their  weakest.     In  this  they  are 


146  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

right:  Materialism  is  indeed  an  impossible  philosophy. 
Materialism  is  nothing  but  a  certain  theory  of  natural 
sciences,  necessary  in  natural  science  but  entirely  unfit  for 
an  ultimate  view  of  reality.  Such  a  view  can  be  given 
only  by  idealism. 

To  be  sure,  some  of  our  friends  have  a  leaning  toward 
a  half  philosophy  which  is  neither  materialism  nor  ideal- 
ism, and  which  is  nowadays  often  labeled  pragmatism. 
There  is  nothing  absolute,  nothing  eternal,  they  say,  and 
truth  is  only  that  which  fits  our  purposes.  But  just  such 
pragmatists  ought  to  resist  the  spiritualistic  pseudo- 
science  with  all  their  energies.  Their  philosophy  ought  to 
tell  them  that  there  cannot  be  any  help  or  any  hope  for 
our  purposes  in  the  conception  of  a  world  which  is  per- 
vaded with  happenings  which  even  the  official  prophet  of 
Madame  Palladino  calls  "  preposterous,  futile,  and  lack- 
ing in  any  quality  of  the  smallest  ethical,  religious  or 
spiritual  value." 

Millions  and  millions  have  to  die  every  year  because 
some  parts  of  their  bodies  are  diseased.  They  could  be 
helped  and  could  live  on  if  some  slight  changes  in  the 
organisms  could  be  effected,  changes  which  the  physician 
cannot  effect  because  the  laws  of  nature  limit  the  actions 
of  the  body.  And  now  we  are  to  believe  that  in  reality 
the  good-will  of  the  spirits  is  not  bound  by  such  a  law, 
that  a  neck  can  become  three  feet  long,  that  a  third  arm 
can  grow  out  of  the  shoulder,  in  short,  that  any  trans- 
formation of  the  body  can  be  secured.     And  the  smallest 


MY  FRIENDS,  THE  SPIRITUALISTS      147 

part  of  such  radical  bodily  changes  could  have  saved  those 
millions  who  had  to  die. 

But  I  am  not  a  pragmatist.  With  every  fiber  of  my 
conviction  I  stand  for  idealism  in  philosophy,  as  far  from 
materialism  as  from  pragmatism.  I  believe  that  our  real 
life  is  free  will,  bound  by  ideal  standards  which  are 
absolute  and  eternal.  The  truth  is  such  an  eternal  goal. 
iWe  have  to  submit  to  it  and  not  to  choose  it  as  the 
pragmatist  fancies.  But  the  obligation  which  truth  forces 
on  our  will  does  not  come  from  without  as  the  materialist 
imagines;  it  is  given  by  the  structure  of  our  own  truth- 
seeking  will.  The  mere  experience  of  life  is  not  truth. 
We  gain  truth  only  by  shaping  the  life  experience  in  the 
service  of  our  ideals  of  reason.  Human  knowledge  has 
to  remold  and  reshape  the  material  experience  until  it 
forms  itself  in  scientific  theories  in  such  a  way  that  a 
world  of  order  and  law  is  constructed.  Our  own  truth- 
seeking  will  thus  determines  beforehand  what  forms  of 
thought  must  mold  experience  in  order  to  give  to  it  the 
value  of  truth.  Our  own  reason  thus  lays  down  before- 
hand the  real  constitution  of  the  only  possible  world 
which  can  be  an  object  of  knowledge,  and  it  is  not  enough 
that  our  friends  the  spiritualists  come  and  simply  answer 
with  the  famous  political  words:  "What  Is  the  con- 
stitution among  friends?"  The  constitution  of  our 
reason  is  indeed  everything  for  our  possible  world  ex- 
perience, and  whatever  facts  may  come  to  us  with  the 
claim  to  be  true,  the  constitution  which  our  logic  has 


148  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

established  must  decide  whether  they  can  be  accepted 
or  must  be  remolded  until  they  are  acceptable.  If  we 
disregard  this  constitution,  then  it  has  no  value  and  no 
meaning  even  to  discuss  the  possibility  of  disregarding 
it.  We  should  not  know  whether  we  understand  one 
another.  We  should  not  know  whether  that  which  I 
mean  does  not  mean  the  opposite  to  you.  We  should 
plunge  into  mere  absurdity.  The  principle  of  ultimate 
truth  must  be  sought  in  our  own  logic  and  reason  and 
no  philosophy  can  be  found  by  watching  the  psychic  of  the 
Lincoln  Square  Arcade. 


VII 
THE  MARKET  AND  PSYCHOLOGY 


VII 

THE   MARKET   AND    PSYCHOLOGY 

A  LONG  time  before  New  York  and  Chicago  were 
discovered,  there  lived  an  alchemist  who  sold  an 
unfailing  prescription  for  making  gold  from  eggs.  He 
sold  it  at  a  high  price,  on  a  contract  that  he  was  to  refund 
the  whole  sum  in  case  the  prescription  was  carried  through 
and  did  not  yield  the  promised  result.  It  is  said  that 
he  never  broke  the  contract  and  yet  became  a  very  rich 
man.  His  prescription  was  that  the  gold-seeker  should 
hold  a  pan  over  the  fire  with  the  yolks  of  a  dozen  eggs 
in  it  and  stir  them  for  half  an  hour  without  ever  thinking 
of  the  word  hippopotamus.  Many  thousands  tried,  and 
yet  no  one  succeeded.  The  fatal  word,  which  perhaps 
they  never  had  thought  of  before,  now  always  unfortu- 
nately rushed  into  their  minds,  and  the  more  they  tried 
to  suppress  it,  the  more  it  was  present.  That  good  man 
was  a  fair  psychologist.  He  knew  something  of  the  laws 
of  the  mind,  and  although  he  may  have  been  unable  to 
transform  eggs  into  gold,  he  understood  instead  how  to 
transform  psychology  into  gold.  Psychology  has  made 
rapid  progress  since  those  times  in  which  the  alchemist 
cornered  the  market,  but  our  modern  commerce  and  in- 
dustry  so    far   have   profited   little    from   the   advance. 

151 


152  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

Goods  arc  manufactured  and  distributed,  bought  and  sold; 
at  every  stage  the  human  mind  is  at  work,  since  human 
minds  are  the  laborers,  arc  the  salesmen,  are  the  buyers; 
and  yet  no  one  consults  the  exact  knowledge  of  the  science 
that  deals  with  the  laws  and  characteristics  of  the  human 
mind. 

How  curiously  this  situation  contrasts  with  our  practical 
application  of  physical  science!  We  can  hardly  imagine 
a  state  In  which  we  should  allow  the  scholarly  physicist 
to  have  steam  engines  and  telegraphs  in  his  laboratory 
rooms  and  yet  make  no  effort  to  put  these  inventions  to 
practical  use  in  the  world  of  industry  and  commerce. 
But  just  that  is  the  situation  in  the  world  of  mental  facts. 
The  laboratories  for  the  study  of  inner  life  flourish,  ex- 
periments are  made,  inventions  are  tested,  new  vistas  are 
opened;  but  practical  life  goes  on  without  making  use  of 
all  these  psychological  discoveries.  It  is,  indeed,  as  if 
the  steam  engine  were  confined  to  the  laboratory  table, 
while  in  the  practical  world  work  were  still  done  clumsily 
by  the  arms  of  slaves. 

The  only  fields  in  which  the  psychical  experiment  has 
been  somewhat  translated  into  practical  use  are  those  of 
education  and  medicine.  The  educational  expert  has  ' 
slowly  begun  to  understand  that  the  attention  and  the 
interest  of  the  school  child,  his  imitations  and  his  play, 
his  memory  and  his  fatigue,  deserve  careful  psychological 
study.  The  painstaking  studies  of  the  laboratory  have 
shown  how  the  old  teacher,  in  spite  of  his  common  sense, 
too    often    worked    with    destructive    methods.     Whole 


THE  MARKET  AND  PSYCHOLOGY      153 

school  plans  had  to  be  revised,  the  mental  hygiene  of 
the  school-room  had  to  be  changed,  educational  prej- 
udices had  to  be  swept  away. 

In  a  similar  way  psychological  knowledge  gradually 
leaked  into  the  medical  world  also.  The  power  of  sug- 
gestion, with  all  its  shadings,  from  slight  psychothera- 
peutic influence  to  the  deepest  hypnotic  control,  is  slowly 
becoming  a  tool  of  the  physician.  The  time  has  come 
when  it  is  no  longer  excusable  that  our  medical  students 
should  enter  professional  life  without  a  knowledge  of 
scientific  psychology.  They  do  not  deserve  sympathy  if 
they  stand  aghast  when  quacks  and  mystics  are  successful 
where  their  own  attempts  at  curing  have  failed.  It  can 
be  foreseen  that  reform  in  this  field  is  near,  and  it  may 
be  admitted  that  even  those  healing  knights  errant  have 
helped  to  direct  the  public  interest  to  the  overwhelming 
Importance  of  psychology  in  medicine.  For  education 
and  medicine  alike  the  hope  seems  justified  that  the 
laboratory  work  of  the  psychologist  for  the  practical 
needs  of  men  will  not  be  in  vain. 

We  are  much  farther  from  this  end  in  the  field  of  law. 
Certainly  the  psychologist  knows  better  than  any  one 
that  he  has  neither  a  prescription  to  remove  crime  from 
the  world  nor  an  instrument  to  see  to  the  bottom  of  the 
mind  of  the  defendant  or  to  make  the  witness  speak  noth- 
ing but  the  truth.  Nevertheless,  he  knows  that  an 
abundance  of  facts  has  been  secured  by  experimental 
methods  which  might  be  helpful  in  the  prevention  of 
crime,  in  the  sifting  of  evidence,  and  in  the  securing  of 


154  AiMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

truthful  confession.  Every  word  of  the  witness  depends 
on  his  memory,  on  his  power  of  perception,  on  his  sug- 
gestibility, on  his  emotion;  and  yet  no  psychological 
expert  is  invited  to  make  use  of  the  psychological 
achievements  in  this  sphere.  But  even  here  there  are 
signs  of  progress,  for  interest  in  the  problems  involved 
seems  wide  awake. 

It  is  strikingly  different  with  the  whole  field  of  economic 
activity.  The  thousandfold  importance  of  psychological 
studies  to  the  life  of  the  workshop  and  the  mill,  of  the 
store  and  the  household,  has  not  yet  attracted  public 
attention.  On  the  whole,  commerce  and  industry  seem  to 
take  good  care  of  themselves,  and  seem  little  in  the  mood 
to  philosophize  or  to  beg  advice  of  a  psychological  ex- 
pert. Here  and  there  they  have  taken  a  bit  of  laboratory 
knowledge  and  profited  from  it,  without  realizing  that 
such  a  haphazard  plunge  into  psychology  can  hardly  be 
sufl5cient.  For  instance,  no  railway  or  steamship  com- 
pany would  employ  a  man  who  is  to  look  out  for  signals 
until  he  has  been  examined  for  color-blindness.  The 
variations  of  the  color  sense  in  men  are  typical  discoveries 
of  psychological  experimentation.  But  even  here  the  ex- 
pert knows  that  the  practical  tests  of  to-day  represent,  on 
the  whole,  an  earlier  stage  of  knowledge,  and  do  not 
progress  parallel  to  laboratory  study  of  the  varieties  of 
color-blindness.  Further,  the  transportation  companies 
ought  not  to  limit  their  signal  tests  to  trials  of  the  color 
sense.  It  is  perhaps  no  less  important  that  the  man  on 
the  engine  should  be  tested  as  to  the  rapidity  of  his  re- 


THE  MARKET  AND  PSYCHOLOGY      155 

actions,  or  the  accuracy  of  his  perceptions,  or  the  quickness 
of  his  decisions.  For  the  examination  of  each  of  such 
mental  capacities  the  psychological  laboratory  can  furnish 
exact  methods.  Moreover,  the  transportation  companies 
should  have  no  less  interest  in  studying  with  psychological 
experiments  the  question  of  what  kind  of  signals  may 
be  most  appropriate.  For  instance,  psychologists  have 
raised  the  important  query  whether  it  is  advisable  to  have 
different  railroad  signals  in  the  daytime  from  those  at 
night.  The  safety  of  the  service  demands  that  the  correct 
handling  be  done  automatically,  and  this  will  be  secured 
the  more  easily,  the  more  uniform  the  outer  conditions. 
Experiment  alone  can  determine  the  influence  of  such 
variations. 

Even  this  small  psychological  group,  the  use  of  signals 
for  transportation  companies,  is  not  confined  to  visible 
impressions.  An  abundance  of  effort  is  nowadays  con- 
centrated on  the  fog-horn  signals  of  ships,  but  no  one 
gives  any  attention  to  the  psychological  conditions  for 
discriminating  the  direction  from  which  a  sound  comes. 
In  our  psychological  laboratories  widely  different  experi- 
ments have  been  made  concerning  the  perception  of 
sounds  with  reference  to  direction  and  distance.  We 
know,  for  instance,  that  certain  illusions  constantly  enter 
into  this  field,  and  that  the  conditions  of  the  ear,  and 
even  of  the  ear-shell,  may  produce  important  modifica- 
tions. Yet  no  one  thinks  of  studying  with  all  the  avail- 
able psychological  means  the  hearing  capacities  of  the 
ship  officer.     A  difference  in  the  two  ears  of  the  captain 


156  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

may  be  no  less  disastrous  than  the  inability  to  discrimi- 
nate red  and  green. 

Another  jfield  in  which  a  slight  tendency  to  consult  the 
modern  psychologist  has  set  in  is  that  of  advertising. 
Many  hundreds  of  millions  are  probably  wasted  every 
year  on  advertisements  that  are  unsuccessful  because  they 
do  not  appeal  to  the  mind  of  the  reader.  They  may  be 
unfit  to  draw  his  attention,  or  may  be  unable  to  impress 
the  essentials  on  his  memory,  or,  above  all,  may  not  suc- 
ceed in  giving  the  desired  suggestion.  The  reader 
glances  at  them  without  being  impressed  by  the  desirable 
qualities  of  the  offered  wares. 

The  evident  need  of  psychological  guidance  has  affected 
a  certain  contact  between  empirical  psychology  and  busi- 
ness in  this  field.  The  professional  advertisement  writer 
to-day  looks  into  the  psychology  of  suggestion  and  atten- 
tion, of  association  of  ideas  and  apperception,  and  profits 
from  the  interesting  books  that  cover  the  theory  of  ad- 
vertising. Yet  every  row  of  posters  on  the  billboards 
affords  plenty  of  material  for  studying  sins  against  the 
spirit  of  psychology.  Perhaps  there  sits  in  life-size  the 
guest  at  the  restaurant  table  and  evidently  rejects  the 
wrong  bottle,  which  the  waiter  is  bringing.  The  ad- 
vertiser intends  to  suggest  that  every  passer-by  should  be 
filled  with  disgust  for  the  wrong  brand,  while  the  only 
desirable  one  is  printed  in  heavy  letters  above.  What 
really  must  happen  Is  that  the  advertised  name  will  as- 
sociate itself  with  the  imitated  inner  movement  of  rejec- 


[THE  MARKET  AND  PSYCHOLOGY      157 

tion,  and  the  rival  company  alone  can  profit  from  the 
unpsychological  poster. 

But,  anyhow,  the  application  of  general  psychology  to 
the  problem  of  advertising  can  be  only  the  beginning. 
What  is  needed  is  the  introduction  of  systematic  experi- 
ment which  will  cover  the  whole  ground  of  display,  not 
only  in  pictures  and  text,  but  in  the  shop  windows  and 
the  stores.  The  experiment  may  refer  to  the  material 
itself.  Before  an  advertisement  is  printed,  the  arrange- 
ment of  words,  the  kind  of  type,  the  whole  setting  of  the 
content,  may  be  tested  experimentally.  The  electric 
chronoscope  of  the  psychological  laboratory  can  easily 
show  how  many  thousandths  of  a  second  the  average 
reader  needs  for  reading  one  or  another  type,  and  other 
experiments  may  demonstrate  how  much  is  apperceived 
during  a  short  exposure,  and  how  much  kept  in  memory, 
and  what  kind  of  involuntary  emotional  response  and 
muscle  reaction  is  started  by  every  kind  of  arrangement. 
The  trade  journals  not  seldom  show  specimens  of  skillful 
and  of  clumsy  schemes  of  advertising,  and  yet  all  this  re- 
mains dogmatic  until  experiment  has  brought  out  the 
subtle  points. 

But  much  more  important  than  experimenting  with  the 
concrete  material  is  the  experimental  study  of  the  prin- 
ciples involved.  This  is,  after  all,  the  strength  of  the 
experimental  method  in  all  fields,  that  the  complex  facts 
of  life  are  transformed  into  neat,  simple  schemes  in  which 
everything  is  left  out  but  the   decisive   factor.     If  the 


158  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

jeweler  wants  to  display  his  rings  and  watches  in  the 
window  in  such  a  way  that  the  effect  of  the  largest  pos- 
sible number  will  be  produced,  it  is  not  necessary  that  we 
experiment  for  him  with  costly  timepieces  and  jewelry. 
For  instance,  we  may  place  twenty  little  squares  of  paper 
on  one  sheet  of  black  cardboard,  and  on  another  from 
sixteen  to  twenty-four.  After  short  exposures  we  ask  our 
subjects  to  decide  on  which  sheet  there  are  more  squares. 
If  the  squares  on  both  sheets  are  arranged  in  the  same 
way  the  observer  will  see  at  a  glance  that  eighteen  are 
less  than  twenty,  or  twenty-two  more  than  twenty.  But 
by  trying  very  different  combinations  and  studying  the 
effect  of  different  groupings,  we  shall  soon  discover  that 
with  certain  arrangements  the  twenty  look  like  only  seven- 
teen, or,  with  better  arrangements,  like  twenty-two  or 
twenty-three.  In  the  same  way  we  may  study  the  effect 
if  we  mix  squares  and  circles,  or  have  squares  of  various 
sizes,  or  some  of  uniform,  some  of  different  color.  In 
short,  in  the  most  simple  form  of  experiment  we  can  find 
out  the  principles  that  control  the  impression  of  the 
passer-by  as  to  the  greater  or  smaller  number  he  believes 
himself  to  see. 

The  effort  to  attract  the  customer  begins,  of  course, 
not  with  the  storekeeper  and  the  salesman,  but  with  the 
manufacturer.  He,  too,  must  know  psychology  in  order 
to  make  his  article  as  persuasive  as  possible.  Since  I  be- 
gan to  give  my  attention  to  the  application  of  psychology 
to  commerce  and  labor,  I  have  collected  a  large  number 
of  wrappings  and  packings  in  which  the  various  industrial 


THE  MARKET  AND  PSYCHOLOGY      159 

establishments  sell  their  goods,  and  have  received  plenty 
of  confidential  information  as  to  the  success  or  failure 
of  the  various  labels  and  pictures.  Not  a  few  of  them 
can  be  tested  quite  exactly,  inasmuch  as  the  article  itself 
remains  the  same,  while  the  make-up  for  the  retail  sale 
changes.  The  same  quality  and  kind  of  toilet  soap  or 
chocolate  or  breakfast  food  or  writing  paper  that  in 
the  one  packing  remained  a  dead  weight  on  the  store 
shelves,  in  another  packing  found  a  rapid  sale. 

Much  depends  upon  the  habits  and  traditions  and  upon 
the  development  of  taste  among  the  special  group  of  cus- 
tomers. But  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  if  the  material 
is  analyzed  carefully  the  psychological  laboratory  can 
predict  beforehand  failure  or  success  with  a  certain  safety. 
As  a  matter  of  course,  such  factors  cannot  be  reduced 
to  a  few  simple  equations.  There  is  no  special  color  com- 
bination that  is  suitable  for  chocolates  and  soap  and 
chewing-gum  alike,  and  the  same  color  combination  is  not 
even  equally  fitting  for  both  summer  and  winter.  And 
still  less  can  the  same  head  of  a  girl  be  successfully  used 
to  advertise  side-combs  and  patent  medicines  and  ketchup. 
But  this  associative  factor  is  equally  open  to  scientific 
experiment. 

Yet,  after  all,  the  make-up  of  the  article  and  its  paper 
cover  are  less  important  than  the  quality  and  construction 
of  the  goods  themselves.  The  manufacturer  too  easily 
forgets  that  his  product  is  to  be  used  for  the  purposes  of 
human  minds,  and  that  a  real  perfection  of  his  output 
can  never  be  reached  unless  the  subtlest  adjustment  to  the 


i6o  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

mental  functions  is  secured.  This  is  true  for  th'e  most 
trivial  as  well  as  the  most  refined  and  complex  thing  that 
is  to  satisfy  human  interests.  To  be  sure,  small  effect 
would  be  gained  if  the  seller  were  simply  to  look  over  a 
text-book  of  psychology.  He  might  easily  be  misled. 
The  psychologist  can  show  that  a  square  filled  with 
horizontal  lines  looks  tall  and  one  filled  with  vertical 
lines  looks  broad,  but  woe  to  the  tailoring  establishment 
that  should  dress  Its  customers  in  accordance  with 
that  psychological  prescription.  If  the  tailor  were  to 
dress  the  stout  woman  who  wants  to  appear  tall  in  cos- 
tumes with  horizontal  stripes  and  the  thin  one  who  wants 
to  look  plump  in  a  dress  with  vertical  stripes,  the  effect 
would  be  the  opposite  of  that  which  was  desired.  It  is 
not  that  psychology  is  wrong,  but  the  application  of  the 
principle  is  out  of  order.  We  never  look  at  a  woman 
as  we  look  at  a  square,  comparing  the  height  with  the 
breadth.  The  vertical  stripes  in  the  gown  force  our 
eyeballs  to  move  upward  and  downward  and  reenforce  by 
that  our  perception  of  height,  while  the  horizontal  stripes 
simply  suggest  to  us  the  idea  of  breadth.  Or,  to  point 
to  a  similar  misapplication:  There  was  a  painter  who 
had  learned  from  the  psychologists  that  we  see  singly  only 
those  things  upon  which  we  focus,  while  everything  in  the 
background  is  seen  by  the  two  eyes  in  a  double  image. 
He  thought  for  this  reason  that  he  would  reach  a  more 
natural  effect  if  he  drew  double  lines  for  the  background 
things  in  his  pictures.  The  effect  was  absurd,  as  his 
double  picture  was  now  seen  with  each  of  the  two  eyes, 


THE  MARKET  AND  PSYCHOLOGY      i6i 

while  in  reality  we  get  z  double  image  by  developing  one 
in  each  eye. 

Half-baked  psychology  certainly  cannot  help  us,  but 
the  fact  that  misunderstandings  may  come  up  in  every 
corner  of  psychology  is  no  argument  against  its  proper 
use.  We  should  not  like  to  eat  the  meal  which  a  cook 
might  prepare  from  bits  of  chemical  knowledge  gathered 
from  a  hand-book  of  physiology.  The  well-trained  ex- 
pert must  always  remain  the  middleman  between  science 
and  the  needs  of  practical  life.  But  if  special  laboratories 
for  applied  psychology  could  examine  the  market  demands 
with  careful  study  of  all  the  principles  involved,  the  gain 
for  practical  life  would  be  certain. 

To  analyze  the  case  a  little  more  fully,  I  may  point  to 
a  product  of  our  factories  that  is  indispensable  to  our 
modern  life  —  the  typewriting  machine.  It  may  serve 
as  an  illustration  just  as  well  as  a  hundred  other  industrial 
articles,  and  it  has  the  advantage  that  the  varieties  of 
the  machines  are  popularly  well  known.  Everybody 
knows  that  there  are  machines  with  or  without  visible 
writing,  machines  with  ideal  keyboards  and  machines  with 
universal  keyboards,  machines  with  the  double  keyboard 
and  machines  with  the  single  keyboard  on  which  the 
capital  letters  demand  the  pressure  of  a  shift-key  to 
change  the  position  of  the  carriage.  Psychologists  nowa- 
days especially  in  Germany,  have  started  to  examine  care- 
fully the  claims  of  the  various  systems,  and  the  results 
differ  greatly  from  what  the  man  on  the  street  presupposes. 
Thus  we  stand  before  a   curious   conflict.     The  manu- 


i62  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

facturer  must  shape  his  article  in  such  a  way  that  it 
attracts  the  customer,  but  while  this  holds  without  restric- 
tion for  questions  of  external  shape  and  outfit  and  pack- 
ing and  name,  it  may  interfere  with  the  greatest  usefulness 
of  the  article  and  therefore  with  the  real  advantage  of 
the  buyer.  Yet  ultimately  the  advantage  of  the  men  who 
use  the  article  must  be  the  strongest  advertisement,  and  it 
may  thus  be  quite  possible  that  it  lies  more  in  the  interest 
of  the  manufacturer  to  bring  to  the  market  a  product  that 
pleases  less  at  the  first  approach  and  by  a  surface  appear- 
ance, but  more  in  the  long  run. 

The  visible  writing  of  the  typewriter  is  a  case  In  point. 
He  who  is  not  accustomed  to  typewriting  and  wants  to 
begin  it  will  naturally  prefer  the  writing  with  visible 
letters.  He  thinks  of  his  ordinary  handwriting;  he  knows 
how  essential  It  is  for  him  to  follow  the  point  of  his  pen 
with  his  eyes.  He  forgets  that  in  the  visible  writing  the 
very  letter  that  he  is  writing  Is,  of  course,  Invisible  at 
that  moment,  and  the  touch  of  the  key  perfectly  produces 
the  complete  letter.  The  real  effect  Is,  therefore,  that 
he  sees  the  letters  that  he  Is  no  longer  writing.  The  case 
is  thus  fundamentally  different  from  that  of  handwriting. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  amount  of  attention  that  is  given 
to  looking  at  the  visible  words  Is  withdrawn  from  the 
only  field  that  Is  essential  —  the  keyboard  or  the  copy. 
The  visible  machine  may  appear  more  attractive  to  one 
who  does  not  know,  but  may  be  less  effective  through 
starting  bad  and  distracting  habits.  Yet  again  this  may 
have  psychological  exceptions.     In  the  case  of  those  in- 


THE  MARKET  AND  PSYCHOLOGY      163 

dividuals  who  are  absolutely  vlsualizers,  the  visible  writ- 
ing may  be  a  help  when  they  are  writing,  not  from  a 
copy,  but  on  dictation  or  from  their  own  thoughts.  In 
that  case  the  seeing  of  the  preceding  letters  would  help 
in  the  organization  of  the  motor  impulses  needed  for 
pressing  the  keys  for  the  next  syllable.  It  would,  there- 
fore, demand  a  careful  experimental  analysis  to  determine 
those  persons  who  would  profit  and  those  who  would 
suffer  by  the  visibility  of  the  writing.  The  instinctive 
feeling  can  never  decide  it. 

But  this  difference  of  individual  disposition  plays  no  less 
a  part  with  reference  to  the  other  qualities  of  the  various 
types  of  machines.  The  double,  keyboard  demands  a 
distribution  of  attention  over  a  very  large  field.  The  psy- 
chological laboratory  can  easily  demonstrate  that  in- 
dividuals exist  whose  attention  is  "oncentrated  and  can- 
not stretch  out  much  beyond  the  focus,  and  others  whose 
attention  is  wide  and  moves  easily.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  shift-key  is  not  merely  one  of  the  many  keys,  but  de- 
mands an  entirely  different  kind  of  effort,  which  interrupts 
the  smooth  running  flow  of  finger  movements.  The  psy- 
chophysical experiment  demonstrates  how  much  more 
slowly  and  with  how  much  more  effort  the  shift-key  move- 
ment must  be  performed.  Again,  the  analysis  of  the 
laboratory  shows  that  there  are  individuals  who  can  easily 
interrupt  their  regular  movement  habits  by  will  impulses 
of  an  entirely  different  kind,  but  others  who  lose  much 
of  their  psychological  energy  by  so  sudden  a  change. 
For  these  the  breaking  in  of  the  shift-key  process  means 


i64  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

an  upsetting  of  the  mental  adjustment  and  therefore  a 
great  loss  in  their  effectiveness.  Accordingly,  the 
machine  that  is  excellent  for  the  one  is  undesirable  for  the 
other,  and  the  market  would  fare  better  if  all  this  were 
not  left  to  chance. 

Even  as  to  the  keyboard,  it  seems  that  psychological 
principles  are  involved  which  demand  reference  to  in- 
dividual tendencies.  For  some  it  is  best  if  the  letters  that 
frequently  occur  together  in  the  language  are  in  near 
neighborhood  on  the  keyboard;  for  other  minds  such  an 
arrangement  is  the  least  desirable.  These  writers  mix 
up  the  motor  impulses  that  belong  to  similar  and  cor- 
related ideas,  and  they  fare  better  if  the  intimately  as- 
sociated letters  demand  a  movement  in  an  entirely 
different  direction,  with  the  greatest  possible  psychological 
contrast. 

There  is  hardly  any  instrument  on  the  market  for  which 
a  similar  analysis  of  the  interplay  of  mental  energies 
could  not  be  carried  out.  But  let  us  rather  turn  to  an- 
other aspect,  the  work  in  the  factory  itself.  I  feel  sure 
that  the  time  will  come  when  the  expert  psychologist 
will  become  the  most  helpful  agent  in  this  sphere  of 
industrial  life.  The  farmers  have  tilled  the  ground  for 
thousands  of  years  without  scientific  chemistry,  but  we 
know  how  indispensable  the  aid  of  the  chemist  appears 
to  the  agriculturist  to-day.  A  new  period  of  farming  has 
begun  through  the  help  of  the  scientific  expert.  A  similar 
service  to  labor  and  industry  might  be  rendered  by  ex- 
perimental  psychology.     It   would    even   be    quite    con- 


THE  MARKET  AND  PSYCHOLOGY      165 

celvable  that  governments  should  organize  this  help  in 
a  similar  way  to  that  by  which  they  have  secured  agri- 
cultural laboratories  for  the  farms  of  the  country.  The 
Department  of  Agriculture  at  Washington  has  experi- 
mental stations  all  over  the  land,  and  not  a  little  of  the 
great  harvest  is  due  to  their  effectiveness.  The  Depart- 
ment of  Commerce  and  Labor  at  a  future  time  may 
establish  experimental  stations  which  will  bring  corres- 
ponding help  to  the  mills  and  factories  and  even  to  the 
artisans  everywhere.  There  is  no  establishment  that  pro- 
duces without  making  use  of  human  minds  and  brains. 
The  mill-owner  must  learn  how  to  use  the  mental  energies 
of  his  laborers  in  the  same  way  that  the  farmer  knows 
how  to  use  the  properties  of  the  soil.  And  such  help 
is  not  only  to  the  economic  interest  of  the  producer;  it 
would  be  perhaps  still  more  to  the  interest  of  the  work- 
ingman  and  his  market  price. 

The  first  thought  might  turn  to  the  safety  of  the 
laborer,  which  is  indeed  dependent  upon  various  psy- 
chological conditions.  For  instance,  the  mill-owner  is 
not  expected  to  know  what  mental  factors  determine  the 
correct  perception  of  distance,  and  yet  it  is  evident  that 
a  laborer  is  in  constant  danger  if  he  cannot  estimate  cor- 
rectly his  distance  from  a  moving  machine.  He  may  be 
able  to  see  correctly  with  one  eye  every  part  of  the 
machine,  but  if  the  other  eye  is  somewhat  defective, 
though  he  himself  may  not  notice  it,  his  plastic  Interpreta- 
tion of  his  impressions  will  be  insufficient.  He  will  con- 
stantly be  in  danger  of  putting  his  hands  into  the  buzz- 


t66  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

ing  wheels.  Only  careful  consideration  of  such  psy- 
chological elements  as  build  up  the  idea  of  distance,  and 
exact  tests  of  the  workingman's  senses,  could  eliminate 
such  ever-present  dangers. 

The  captain  of  industry  may  feel  more  interested  in 
bringing  out  the  fullest  efficiency  of  his  laborer;  but, 
again,  as  yet  nothing  indicates  that  he  is  willing  to  put 
scientific  exactitude  into  the  service  of  this  dominant  psy- 
chological question.  An  experimental  test  alone  can  de- 
cide under  what  conditions  the  greatest  continuity  of 
effective  work  can  be  secured  and  under  what  mental  con- 
ditions the  individual  can  do  his  best.  Methods  for 
studying  the  curve  of  fatigue  in  the  individual  laborer, 
or  the  conditions  for  his  most  accurate  muscle  work,  and 
a  hundred  similar  devices,  are  to-day  already  at  the  dis- 
posal of  the  mental  workshop;  but  probably  for  a  long 
time  to  come  the  foreman  will  be  thought  to  know  better 
than  the  expert. 

Moreover,  it  is  evident  that  as  soon  as  this  contact 
between  the  mill  and  the  experimental  psychological 
laboratory  has  been  perfected,  new  questions  will  arise 
corresponding  to  the  special  needs  of  industrial  activity. 
The  technical  conditions  of  every  industry  in  the  country 
can  easily  be  imitated  in  the  laboratory  with  the  simplest 
means.  So  far  we  have  not  the  least  really  scientific 
investigation  of  the  psychological  effect  of  specializing,  of 
the  division  of  labor,  of  the  influence  of  changes  in  the 
machines,  of  the  complexity  of  machines,  of  the  effect  of 
temperature,  food,  light,  color,  noise,  odor,  of  discipline. 


THE  MARKET  AND  PSYCHOLOGY     167 

reward,  Imitation,  piece  work,  of  repetition,  of  distribution 
of  attention,  of  emotion,  and  hundreds  of  other  mental 
factors  that  enter  Into  the  workingman's  life.  It  is  simply 
untrue  to  say  that  those  things  regulate  themselves.  On 
the  contrary,  traditions  and  superficial  tendencies,  short- 
sighted economy  and  Indifference,  a  thousand  times  estab- 
lish methods  that  are  to  nobody's  interest.  The  employer 
and  the  employee  alike  have  to  suffer  from  them. 

We  may  get  an  idea  of  the  help  that  could  be  brought 
If,  for  Instance,  we  think  of  the  methods  of  learning  the 
handling  of  machines.  There  are  many  industrial  activi- 
ties that  demand  most  complicated  technique,  and  yet  the 
learning  is  left  to  most  haphazard  methods.  So  far,  we 
know  practically  nothing  as  to  the  most  profitable  methods 
of  learning  these  industrial  activities.  But  we  have  only 
to  compare  this  situation  with  the  excellent  work  that 
modern  experimental  psychology  has  performed  in  the 
fields  of  handwriting,  typewriting,  telegraphy,  piano-play- 
ing, and  drawing.  In  every  one  of  these  fields  most  care- 
ful experiments  have  been  carried  on  for  months  under 
the  most  subtle  conditions.  With  complex  Instruments 
the  growth  and  development  of  the  process  were  analyzed, 
and  the  influences  that  retarded  progress  and  hampered 
the  most  eflSicIent  learning  were  disentangled. 

Again  we  may  learn  from  the  case  of  typewriting  work. 
Any  one  who  writes  with  the  forefingers  may  finally  reach 
a  certain  rapidity  in  handling  the  machine.  Yet  no  one 
masters  it  who  has  not  learned  it  In  a  systematic  way 
which  must  ultimately  be  controlled  by  the  studies  of  ex- 


i68  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

perimcntal  psychologists.     Such  experimental  analyses  of 
the  processes  In  learning  to  run  the  typewriter  have  been 
carried  through  with  the  greatest  carefulness,  and  have 
demonstrated  that  the  student  passes  through  a  number 
of  different  stages.     He  Is  not  only  doing  the  thing  more 
and  more  quickly :  the  essential  factor  lies  in  the  develop- 
ment of  habits  —  habits  of  manipulation,  habits  of  feel- 
ing attitude,  habits  of  attention,   habits  of  association, 
habits  of  decisions  In  overcoming  difficulties;  and  every 
insight  into  this  formation  of  mental  connections  offers 
guidance  for  a  proficient  training.     The  experiments  in- 
dicate the  psychological  conditions  for  a  spurt  in  effort, 
for  fluctuations  in  efficiency,  for  the  lasting  gain  in  speed 
and  accuracy,   for  their  relations  to  the  activity  of  the 
heart  and  to  motor  activities.     In  short,  we  now  know 
scientifically   the   psychological   processes   by   which   the 
greatest  possible  economy  In  typewriting  can  be  secured. 
There  Is  no  Industrial  machine  in  our  factories  and  mills 
for  which  a  similar  study  has  been  performed;  and  yet 
every  effort  in  this  direction  would  increase  the  effective- 
ness of  the  laborer  and  the  profit  of  the  employer. 

Our  psychological  educators  nowadays  have  studied  with 
all  the  methods  of  the  laboratory  the  effects  of  pauses 
during  the  school  day.  We  know  how  certain  pauses 
work  as  real  recreation  In  which  exhausted  energies  are 
restituted,  but  that  other  kinds  of  pauses  work  as  disturb- 
ing interruptions  by  which  the  acquired  adjustment  to  the 
work  is  lost.  It  would  need  most  accurate  Investigations 
with  the  subtlest  means  of  the  psychological  workshop  to 


THE  MARKET  AND  PSYCHOLOGY      169 

determine  for  each  special  industry  what  rhythm  of  work 
and  what  recesses,  what  rapidity  and  what  method  of 
recreation,  would  secure  the  fullest  effect.  The  mere 
subjective  feeling  of  the  workingman  himself  or  the 
common-sense  judgment  of  the  onlooker  may  be  entirely 
misleading. 

Does  not  every  one  know  how  this  inner  sensation  of 
strength  has  deceived  the  workingman  in  the  case  of  al- 
cohol? His  bottle  supplies  him  with  an  illusory  feeling 
of  energy;  the  careful  experiment  demonstrates  that  his 
effectiveness  suffers  under  the  immediate  influence  of 
whiskey.  The  scientific  inquiry  in  every  such  case  must 
replace  the  superficial  impression.  Moreover,  a  sys- 
tematic study  would  not  only  inquire  how  the  laborer  is 
to  learn  the  most  efficient  use  of  the  existing  machines, 
but  the  machines  themselves  would  then  be  adjusted  to 
the  results  of  the  psychological  experiment.  The  ex- 
periment would  have  to  determine  which  muscles  could 
produce  the  effect  that  is  demanded  with  the  greatest 
accuracy  and  speed  and  perseverance,  and  the  handles  and 
levers  and  keys  would  have  to  be  distributed  accordingly. 
Even  the  builder  of  the  motor-car  relies  on  most  super- 
ficial, common-sense  judgment  when  he  arranges  the  levers 
as  they  seem  most  practical  for  quick  handling.  The  psy- 
chological laboratory,  which  would  study  in  thousandths 
of  a  second  the  movements  of  the  chauffeur  with  the  vari- 
ous cars,  might  find  that  here  also  illusions  too  easily 
enter.  Industry  ought  to  have  outgrown  the  stage  of  un- 
scientific decisions,  and  it  is  inexcusable  if  physics  and 


lyo  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

chemistry  are  considered  the  only  sciences  that  come  into 
question,  and  experimental  psychology  is  ignored,  when 
every  single  business,  every  wheel  to  be  turned  and  every 
lever  to  be  moved,  are  dependent  upon  the  psychical  facts 
of  attention  and  memory,  of  will  and  feeling,  of  percep- 
tion and  judgment. 

It  would  probably  be  more  diflficult  to  help  the  actual 
sale  of  the  commercial  products  by  exact  scientific  methods, 
except  as  far  as  advertisements  and  display  are  concerned. 
And  yet  it  is  evident  that  every  man  behind  the  counter 
and  every  sales-girl  who  wants  to  influence  the  customer 
works  with  psychological  agencies.  The  study  of  the  psy- 
chology of  attention  and  suggestion,  of  association  of  ideas 
and  of  emotion,  may  systematically  assist  the  commercial 
transaction.  The  process  certainly  has  two  sides,  but  if 
we  think  of  the  interest  of  the  salesman  only,  we  might 
say  that  he  has  to  hypnotize  his  victim.  He  has  to  play 
skilfully  on  the  attention  of  his  shopping  customer,  he 
must  slowly  inhibit  in  her  mind  the  desire  for  anything 
that  the  store  cannot  offer,  he  must  cleverly  fix  the  emotions 
on  a  particular  choice,  and  finally  he  must  implant  the 
conviction  that  life  is  not  worth  living  without  this  par- 
ticular shirt-waist.  How  much  the  stores  would  profit 
if  every  employee  should  learn  the  careful  avoidance  of 
opposing  suggestions!  Whether  shop-girls  in  a  depart- 
ment store  are  advised  to  ask  after  every  sale :  "  Do  you 
want  to  take  it  with  you?  "  or  are  instructed  to  ask  first: 
"  Do  you  want  to  have  it  sent  to  your  home?  "  makes  no 
difference  to  the  feeling  of  the  customers.     They  are  un- 


THE  MARKET  AND  PSYCHOLOGY      171 

conscious  sufferers  from  the  suggestion,  but  for  the  store 
it  may  mean  a  difference  of  thousands  for  the  delivery 
service.  The  newspaper  boy  at  the  subway  entrance  who 
simply  asks:  "  Paper,  sir? "  cannot  hope  for  the  success 
of  his  rival  who  with  forceful  suggestion  asks :  **  Which 
paper?  " 

The  experimental  study  of  the  commercial  question  may 
finally  bring  new  clearness  Into  the  relations  of  trade  and 
law.  To  give  one  illustration  from  many,  I  may  mention 
the  case  of  commercial  imitation.  Every  one  who  studies 
the  court  cases  in  restraint  of  trade  becomes  Impressed 
with  the  looseness  and  vagueness  of  the  legal  Ideas  in- 
volved. There  seems  nowhere  a  definite  standard.  In 
buying  his  favorite  article  the  purchaser  is  sometimes  ex- 
pected to  exert  the  sharpest  attention  in  order  not  to  be 
deceived  by  an  imitation.  In  other  cases,  the  court  seems 
to  consider  the  purchaser  as  the  most  careless,  stupid  per- 
son, who  can  be  tricked  by  any  superficial  similarity.  The 
evidence  of  the  trade  witnesses  is  an  entirely  unreliable, 
arbitrary  factor.  The  so-called  ordinary  purchaser 
changes  his  mental  qualities  with  every  judge,  and  it  seems 
impossible  to  foresee  whether  a  certain  label  will  be  con- 
strued as  an  unallowed  imitation  of  the  other  or  as  a 
similar  but  independent  trademark. 

In  the  interest  of  psychology  applied  to  commerce  and 
labor,  I  have  collected  in  my  laboratory  a  large  number  of 
specimens  which  show  all  possible  degrees  of  Imitation. 
In  every  case  it  is  evident  that  the  similarity  of  form  or 
color  or  name  or  packing  is  used  in  a  conscious  way  in 


172  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

order  to  profit  from  the  reputation  of  another  article 
which  has  won  its  popularity  by  quality  or  by  advertise- 
ment. I  have  a  bottle  of  Moxie  among  a  dozen  imita- 
tions of  similar  names  in  bottles  of  a  similar  shape  and 
with  the  beverage  similar  in  color  to  the  successfully  ad- 
vertised Moxie.  Tomato  ketchups  and  sardine  boxes, 
cigarette  cases  and  talcum  powders,  spearmint  gums  and 
plug  tobaccos,  glove  labels  and  vaudeville  posters,  patent 
medicines  and  gelatines,  appear  in  interesting  twin  and 
triplet  forms.  The  cigarette  boxes  of  Egyptian  Deities 
are  accompanied  by  the  Egyptian  Prettiest  and  the  Egyp- 
tian Daintiest;  Rupena  stands  at  the  side  of  Peruna;  and 
the  Pain  Expeller  Is  packed  and  bottled  like  the  Pain 
Killer. 

Not  a  few  of  the  specimens  of  my  imitation  museum 
have  kept  the  lawyers  busy.  Yet  all  this  is  evidently  at 
first  a  case  for  the  psychologist.  The  whole  problem  be- 
longs to  the  psychology  of  recognition.  There  would  be 
no  difficulty  In  producing  In  the  laboratory  conditions 
under  which  the  mental  principles  Involved  could  be  re- 
peated and  brought  under  exact  observation.  Many  ob- 
stacles would  have  to  be  overcome,  but  certainly  the 
experiment  could  determine  the  degree  of  difficulty  or  ease 
with  which  the  recognition  of  a  certain  impression  can  be 
secured.  As  soon  as  such  a  scale  of  the  degrees  of  atten- 
tion were  gained,  we  could  have  an  objective  standard 
and  could  determine  whether  or  not  too  much  attention 
was  needed  to  distinguish  an  Imitation  from  the  original. 
Then  we  might  find  by  objective  methods  whether  the 


THE  MARKET  AND  PSYCHOLOGY      173 

village  drug-store  or  our  lack  of  attention  was  to  blame 
when  we  were  anxious  for  a  glass  of  Moxie  and  the  clerk 
gave  us  instead  the  brown  bitter  fluid  from  a  bottle  of 
Noxie,  Hoxie,  Non-Tox,  Modox,  Nox-All,  Noxemall, 
Noxie-Cola,  Moxinc,  or  Sod-Ox,  all  of  which  stand  tempt- 
ingly in  my  little  museum  for  applied  pschology. 


VIII 
BOOKS  AND  BOOKSTORES 


VIII 

BOOKS   AND   BOOKSTORES 

T  HAVE  just  come  home  from  a  delightful  trip  on  the 
European  Continent,  in  which  there  was  never  any 
chance  to  be  homesick  for  America.  America  was  visible 
everywhere!  American  acquaintances  at  every  inn,  and 
at  every  turn  of  the  road,  American  goods  strewn  over 
every  land.  From  the  Ohio  cash-register  and  the  Con- 
necticut typewriter  and  the  California  fruit  and  the 
Massachusetts  shoe  and  the  New  York  chorus-girl,  down 
to  the  little  devices  with  the  United  States  stamp,  every 
American  product  seems  to  welcome  the  traveler  on  the 
other  side.  There  is  only  one  thing  he  had  better  pack 
into  his  trunk  beforehand  if  he  wants  ever  to  see  It:  an 
American  book. 

The  American  book  is  practically  unknown  in  the 
European  Continent.  I  went  to  the  special  bookstores  of 
foreign  literature ;  they  had  a  hundred  excuses  in  store,  but 
never  the  books  I  wanted.  I  made  my  pilgrimage  to  the 
large  libraries,  and  could  not  find  such  American  books  as 
no  village  library  in  America  would  wish  to  be  without. 
I  went  to  scholarly  congresses  and  talked  there  with  hard- 
reading  men  of  all  nations,  and  they  spoke  of  the  writings 
of  American  scholars  as  of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  which 

177 


178  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

they  certainly  accept  as  existing,  and  which  may  be  splen- 
did and  wonderful,  but  which  they  have  never  had  a 
chance  to  see  in  the  original.  And  on  expressing  my 
astonishment,  I  usually  received  the  reply  that  it  is  too 
bothersome  to  get  American  books,  as  the  book-trade  of 
the  United  States  seems  without  order  and  system :  nobody 
knows  where  to  find  what  is  wanted.  I  saw  it  with  my 
own  eyes.  An  important  book  by  a  Columbia  professor 
had  appeared  In  New  York  in  March;  in  the  following 
August,  a  German  bookstore  wrote  to  the  English  repre- 
sentative of  the  American  house,  and  ordered  the  book 
for  a  customer.  I  saw  the  reply  card  which  laconically 
announced  from  London  that  the  book  had  not  yet  ap- 
peared in  print.  I  was  in  Berlin  when  a  little  paper  of 
mine  in  a  popular  New  York  magazine  stirred  up  some 
discussion  in  America;  the  discussion  went  over  into  the 
German  papers,  but  the  magazine  did  not  follow  over  the 
ocean.  After  hunting  for  it  in  vain  in  the  bookstores, 
where  the  English  magazines  were  heaped  up,  I  was  al- 
most surprised  to  discover  at  last  a  forlorn  copy  on  a 
hotel  news-stand,  purchasable  for  about  three  times  the 
regular  price. 

It  is  easy  to  make  light  of  this  failure  of  the  American 
book  abroad :  what  does  it  amount  to, —  we  are  asked, — 
if  our  latest  novel  is  sold  at  home  in  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands, and  if  our  magazines  reach  every  village  of 
America?  But  even  If  the  dollars  and  cents  In  the  case 
may  be  a  trifling  matter,  there  is  a  more  important  issue 
involved.     The  world-influence   of  the  American  mind 


BOOKS  AND  BOOKSTORES  179 

must  suffer  if  the  chief  messengers  of  American  thought, 
the  books,  are  hampered  on  their  way,  and  if  the  Ameri- 
can scholar  and  poet  and  essayist  and  author  cannot  be 
heard  in  every  land.  The  mist  of  prejudices  against  the 
crudeness  and  materialism  of  the  New  World  is  still 
thick  and  heavy;  how  can  it  be  dispelled,  if  those  who 
interpret  American  ideals  and  express  American  endeavors 
are  kept  in  silence  outside  of  the  home  boundaries?  In 
our  times,  when  the  civilized  world  has  become  one,  and 
every  newspaper  of  Europe  has  its  long  cables  about  the 
most  trivial  American  events,  it  is  a  wrong  to  the  world- 
influence  of  American  culture  if  our  writers  are  banished 
from  the  European  Continent  by  our  own  carelessness. 

Of  course,  it  would  seem  that  good  translations  might 
overcome  the  evil.  But  what  a  pitiful  tale  is  made  by  the 
haphazard  selections  of  the  translators!  It  often  seems 
as  if  the  French,  the  German,  the  Italian  translators 
had  carefully  chosen  the  least  important  and  least  sig- 
nificant products  for  their  interpretative  efforts.  In 
German,  for  instance,  it  is  true  that  Mark  Twain  and 
Bret  Harte,  and  Poe,  and,  to  some  extent  Emerson,  are 
well  known  by  translations,  but  beyond  that  all  is  chaos; 
and  among  American  writers  of  the  last  years,  Andrew 
Carnegie  and  Helen  Kellar  appear  most  often  in  the 
window  of  the  German  bookshop.  The  great  tendencies 
of  modern  American  writing  do  not  show  at  all  in  the 
chance  translations  of  the  day. 

And  yet  the  gloomy  view  of  our  American  book-trade 
which  I  brought  back  from  my  European  travels  has,  after 


i8o  AMERICAN  PROBLEiMS 

all,  a  much  more  serious  meaning.  The  failure  abroad 
may  not  count  for  much,  but  the  impressions  in  Europe 
brought  it  more  clearly  to  my  mind  than  before  that  the 
American  book  to  a  high  degree  is  no  less  a  failure  in 
our  own  country;  here,  too,  it  does  not  really  reach  the 
readers.  Of  course,  the  American  buys  many  books,  and 
pushes  the  latest  novel  to  its  third  hundred  thousand,  but 
no  one  who  watches  the  selection  closely  can  doubt  that 
haphazard  methods  determine  the  demand  and  supply, 
and  that  superficiality  and  aimlessness  prevail;  and  the 
guilt  for  all  of  it  lies  in  the  disorganization  of  the  book- 
trade.  A  change  somewhat  after  the  European  example 
is  needed,  and  such  a  change  would  be  not  simply  a  com- 
mercial problem,  but  truly  a  social  reform.  That  is  the 
reason,  and  the  only  reason,  why  an  observer  of  Ameri- 
can social  traits  asks  for  a  hearing;  a  serious  injury  to 
the  people's  mind  is  imminent  —  that  it  is  an  injury  also 
to  the  publishers'  pocket  is  secondary. 

The  well-adapted  book  at  home  is,  after  all,  the 
strongest  agency  for  national  culture.  It  is  the  only  re- 
liable remedy  for  the  saloon  and  its  miseries,  and  it  is 
the  only  antidote  to  the  benumbing  chase  for  mere  wealth 
and  its  pseudo  pleasures  and  excitements.  The  news- 
paper with  its  sensationalism  cannot  stem  the  longings 
of  the  mind,  and  the  chances  are  great  that  those  who  are 
not  in  the  habit  of  reading  good  books  will  benefit  little 
even  from  the  rich  treasures  that  the  magazines  put  be- 
fore them.  They  glance  perhaps  at  the  pictures,  they 
rush  through  a  story,  they  peep  into  an  article, —  they 


BOOKS  AND  BOOKSTORES  i8i 

have  lost  the  repose  needed  for  that  reading  which  the 
Hbrary  at  home  suggests  and  sternly  demands.  Of 
course,  we  are  near  the  truth  in  blaming  for  all  this  the 
hurry  of  our  up-to-date  life.  To  rush  through  the  world 
in  automobiles  means  to  accustom  the  eye  to  the  rapid 
flight  of  impressions,  and  spoils  the  inner  eye  for  the 
fancies  of  repose.  The  woman  who  wastes  her  time  with 
bridge  whist  loses  the  energy  for  the  old-fashioned  habit 
of  continual  serious  reading.  But,  however  true  that  may 
be,  is  not  perhaps  the  other  side  equally  responsible? 
Is  the  book  defeated  only  because  the  rush  of  superficial 
life  has  become  so  wild,  or  has  not  perhaps  the  rush 
become  so  passionate,  and  the  automobile  and  the  whist 
so  absorbing,  because  the  book  was  too  weak,  and  did 
not  force  itself  sufficiently  into  the  foreground? 

I  point  at  once  to  the  core  of  the  trouble:  in  Europe 
the  bookstores  are  the  center  of  the  reading  community, 
and  their  number  increases  steadily, —  America's  book- 
stores are  dying  out,  and  their  influence  is  insignificant; 
outside  of  the  largest  cities  you  seek  them  almost  in  vain. 
If  I  go  in  Germany,  for  instance,  to  a  town  of  a  hundred 
thousand  inhabitants,  I  find  from  a  dozen  to  a  score  of 
attractive  well-supplied  bookstores.  A  rich  assortment  of 
books  from  all  fields  —  new  and  older  books,  literary 
and  scholarly  books,  popular  editions  and  costly  works  — 
is  easily  accessible  to  the  customer,  and  by  the  splendid 
organization  of  the  trade,  every  book  that  is  not  at  hand 
can  be  supplied  from  the  central  reservoirs  in  a  day. 
Each  store  has  its  ample  display  in  the  windows,  constantly 


i82  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

changing;  each  one  gladly  sends  to  its  customers  for  in- 
spection all  the  new  books  which  might  have  special 
interest  for  him.  The  books  there  come  to  you  and  at- 
tract you  and  tempt  you  and  take  hold  on  you. 

The  average  American  town  of  a  hundred  thousand 
Inhabitants  may  have  a  dozen  jewelry  stores,  but  not  a 
single  true  bookstore.  Of  course  there  are  plenty  of 
chances  to  buy  the  stories  of  the  month,  and  some  books 
on  birds  and  on  travel,  a  golden  treasury  and  a  book  for 
the  boy;  but  a  full  supply  in  all  lines,  as  it  is  found  next 
door  in  the  grocery  or  the  cigar  or  the  glove  or  the  ribbon 
store,  is  practically  unknown  outside  of  the  largest  cities. 
The  books  are  sold  either  in  the  small  stationer's,  with 
ink  and  leather  goods,  if  not  with  candy,  or  in  the  huge 
department  store,  between  bathing-suits  and  trunks.  In 
the  one  case,  there  is  no  backing  of  capital ;  all  is  done  with 
the  narrowest  means.  In  the  other  case,  there  is  no  profit, 
as  the  books  are  on  the  whole  added  to  attract  the  people 
who  might  happen  to  buy  an  umbrella  and  shirt-waist 
after  being  drawn  into  the  big  place  where  the  latest 
novel  is  given  away  below  the  publishers'  wholesale  price. 
In  both  cases  there  is  nothing  at  hand  which  has  not  the 
probability  of  pretty  immediate  sale,  and  in  both  cases 
all  real  interest  in  literature  is  absent;  an  adjustment  to 
the  subtler  needs  of  the  community  is  thus  impossible. 

You  might  reply:  That  does  not  matter,  as  we 
Americans  order  our  books  directly  from  the  publisher, 
which  saves  us  the  profit  of  the  middleman;  the  book 
can  be  sold  so  much  cheaper  because  there  is  no  local 


BOOKS  AND  BOOKSTORES  183 

trade  which  adds  the  profit  of  the  dealer  to  the  price. 
What  the  publishers  have  to  offer  we  know  sufficiently 
from  their  advertisements  in  the  papers,  and  from  their 
pretty,  attractive  catalogues,  and  from  the  reviews  and 
critical  articles.  And  finally,  there  are  the  subscription 
agents,  who  certainly  lack  no  patience  in  bringing  their 
books  to  the  prospective  readers.  We  have  therefore 
stationery  shops,  and  department  houses,  and  publishers' 
advertisements  and  selling  agents,  and  in  addition  the  rail- 
road counters  and  the  hotel-stands, —  what  more  can  be 
desired  ? 

All  this  is  granted.  But  what  is  the  result?  Buying 
books  has  become  to  a  high  degree  a  matter  of  passing 
fashions,  and  these  fashions  are  essentially  determined 
by  the  advertisements  of  the  publishers.  Everybody 
buys  the  latest  book  which  the  fashion  pushes  forward, 
and  the  chances  are  great  that  it  is  just  that  kind  of  a 
book  which  five  years  later  nobody  will  read,  and  which 
will  be  a  dead  weight  in  the  home  library.  No  publisher 
can  afford  to  give  equal  chance  to  all  his  publications. 
To  bring  a  book,  only  for  a  few  weeks,  to  the  attention 
of  the  magazine  or  newspaper  readers  is  extremely  ex- 
pensive; it  is  possible  only  for  the  books  which,  by  the 
name  of  the  author  or  by  sensational  features  or  by  special 
timeliness,  promise  unusual  sale.  Any  other  book,  too, 
might  be  brought  forward  by  extensive  advertising,  but 
it  would  be  ruinous;  it  may  not  be  difficult  to  sell  a  one- 
dollar  book  if  a  two-dollar  bill  is  laid  in  every  copy,  but 
the  publishers  do  not  like  that  method.     As  a  result,  most 


1 84  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

authors  complain  that  their  publishers  do  not  take  enough 
trouble  with  the  announcement  of  their  particular  writings, 
and  that  they  therefore  sell  in  unsatisfactory  numbers. 
They  may  well  envy  the  German  author  whose  books  are 
supplied  on  request  to  every  bookstore  in  the  country 
free  of  charge  for  a  year's  display.  With  us  here  a 
book  that  is  not  widely  advertised,  or  widely  criticised, 
does  not  indicate  its  existence  to  the  average  reader. 
And  yet  this  advertising  system  itself  makes  the  idea 
of  reducing  the  price  of  books  by  eliminating  the  book- 
store entirely  hopeless ;  it  is  more  expensive  than  the  profit 
of  the  middleman,  and  serves  only  the  few  favorites. 

The  immediate  consequence  of  this  whole  situation  is 
the  rapid  disappearance  of  the  books  after  their  noisy 
appearance  for  a  few  months.  Debutantes  in  our  society 
are  allowed  to  dance  at  least  more  than  one  winter  be- 
fore they  withdraw;  but  in  the  catalogues  which  pile  up 
on  our  breakfast-tables  the  debutante  books  of  the  season 
are  alone  admitted,  the  output  of  the  foregoing  year  is 
forgotten.  A  book  which  does  not  win  favor  in  the  first 
weeks  seldom  has  a  second  chance.  But  that  is  a  waste 
of  intellectual  labor  which  no  nation  can  afford.  Eu- 
ropeans are  often  surprised  to  find  how  wasteful  the 
American  household  of  moderate  means  is:  the  kitchen 
makes  use  only  of  the  best  slices,  and  does  not  understand 
the  art  of  making  the  less  favored  parts  appetizing  by 
dainty  cooking,  and  thus  serviceable  to  the  household 
welfare.  The  literary  kitchen  of  the  nation  is  much  more 
wasteful,  without  being  rich  enough  to  be  able  to  afford 


BOOKS  AND  BOOKSTORES  185 

such  luxury.     To  live  ever  from  new  books  means  in  this 
case  simply  underfeeding. 

This  hasty  rhythm  is  all  the  more  ruinous  because 
America  does  not  believe  in  new  editions, —  one  of  the 
saddest  features  of  American  bookmaking.  In  Germany, 
for  instance,  a  book  outside  of  fiction  is  usually  revised  by 
the  author  when  one  thousand  copies  have  been  sold.  It 
is  thus  kept  living,  in  steady  contact  with  the  progress  of 
knowledge,  and  in  steady  adjustment  to  criticism;  thor- 
oughness demands  it.  In  the  United  States  I  know 
students'  text-books  sold  up  to  more  than  fifty  thousand 
copies  in  the  last  twenty  years  with  never  a  word  in  them 
changed.  If  the  book  has  once  found  favor,  it  goes  on,- 
by  mere  tradition,  unchanged,  however  antiquated  its 
statements  may  be.  The  European  publisher  in  such 
cases  would  have  demanded  from  the  authors  a  revision 
at  least  every  second  year.  The  reason  for  the  differ- 
ence is  clear.  The  European  book  is  printed  from  type 
for  the  purpose  of  making  new  editions  easy,  as  the  type 
is  destroyed  after  the  printing  of  a  limited  number.  The 
American  book,  on  the  other  hand,  is  printed  from  plates, 
which  allow  an  unlimited  reprinting  if  the  book  is  suc- 
cessful. It  the  plates  are  once  made,  it  is  of  course  much 
cheaper  to  go  on  with  unchanged  reprinting  than  to  set 
up  a  really  new  edition.  The  publisher  too  often  tempts 
the  author  into  such  superficial  usage  by  contracts  which 
allow  increasing  royalty  with  the  growing  sale,  and  in  this 
way  the  financial  advantage  of  both  author  and  publisher 
has  made  the  custom  of  new  editions  unusual.     Yet  the 


1 86  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

best  chance  to  bring  an  old  book  to  new  light  Is  In  this 
way  thrown  away;  in  Europe  each  new  edition  is  cir- 
culated and  reviewed  like  a  new  book.  In  short,  very 
different  factors  work  together  to  make  American  books 
melt  away  with  the  "  snows  of  yesteryear." 

The  well-advertised  books  disappear  too  quickly,  and 
the  books  which  do  not  justify  extensive  advertisement 
have  no  chance, —  but  all  this  is  the  poor  fate  of  books 
which  have  had  at  least  the  good  fortune  to  appear. 
Can  there  be  any  doubt  that  this  whole  situation  works 
from  the  outset  against  the  appearance  of  many  other 
books?  Not  every  book  has  the  desire  to  be  a  best  seller, 
not  every  book  Is  written  for  large  crowds,  and  yet  if  it 
had  a  chance  to  reach  the  Inquiring  booklovers  in  every 
home,  and  to  remain  for  their  perusal  in  the  bookstores, 
it  might  slowly  find  a  little  audience,  and  might  thus  in 
the  long  run  pay  the  publisher.  But  the  American  pub- 
lisher knows  that  there  is  no  long  run  for  the  book  which 
is  not  expensively  advertised,  or  which  does  not  appeal 
to  large  circles.  He  cannot  risk,  therefore,  manufactur- 
ing the  plates,  and  the  elaborate  manuscript  remains  un- 
printed.  The  lack  of  good  bookstores,  which  are  just 
adapted  for  selling  the  slow-moving  books,  thus  inhibits 
the  literary  production  of  the  whole  country.  The  young 
or  unknown  author  Is  pushed  Into  the  newspapers  and 
magazines,  while  his  thoughts  perhaps  demand  the  book 
for  adequate  expression;  or  he  Is  forced  to  keep  his 
product  unpublished  if  his  work  is  unsulted  to  the  pop- 
ular channels. 


BOOKS  AND  BOOKSTORES  187 

Scholarship  and  academic  activity  suffer  immensely 
from  this  unwillingness  of  the  publishers  to  risk  the  pub- 
lication of  a  modest  book;  and  they  are  justified  in  their 
fears,  as,  under  the  American  system,  publication  would 
indeed  mean  a  loss  to  them.  I  feel  sure  that  my  first  four 
German  books  on  topics  of  experimental  psychology 
would  not  have  been  published  by  an  American  publisher, 
or  only  at  my  own  expense.  In  the  last  year  there  ap- 
peared in  Germany,  with  its  sixty  million  inhabitants, 
28,703  new  books;  in  the  United  States,  with  its  eighty 
millions,  not  more  than  81 12.  In  magazines,  America 
is  far  ahead  of  Europe;  their  organization  is  splendid, 
they  know  how  to  reach  the  American  reader ;  as  they  do 
not  need  the  bookstore,  but  live  from  subscriptions  and 
news-stands,  the  publishers  can  count  on  success,  and  thus 
no  plan  need  remain  unrealized.  With  books,  exactly 
the  opposite;  the  channels  of  distribution  are  clogged 
because  for  them  the  bookstores  are  indispensable,  and 
their  meagerness  thus  works  backwards  on  the  timidity 
of  the  publishers. 

At  the  same  time  the  bookbuyers  become  disorganized 
too.  They  no  longer  have  that  delightful  opportunity  to 
spend  half  an  hour  once  or  twice  a  week  in  a  well-sup- 
plied bookstore,  and  to  enjoy  the  old  friends  and  the  new 
acquaintances  before  they  are  brought  home  for  the  fam- 
ily hearth.  The  reader  without  a  bookstore  becomes 
uncritical ;  with  him  to  work  upon,  the  silliest  book  can  be 
brought  up  to  a  large  edition  by  clever  advertisements, 
and  a  smart  subscription  agent  can  lead  him   into  any 


1 88  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

trap.  The  St.  Louis  World's  Fair  published  an  excellent 
work  in  eight  volumes  as  a  report  of  its  international 
scientific  congress.  This  scholarly  production  was  sold 
at  first  for  twenty,  later  for  twelve  dollars,  and 
when  the  interest  seemed  exhausted,  the  remaining  two 
thousand  copies  were  given  on  a  small  bid  to  a  little 
publishing  firm  which  was  expected  to  sell  the  rest  for  a 
still  smaller  price.  But  the  firm  knew  where  our  trade- 
methods  have  landed  us.  They  took  a  cheap  book  of 
pictures,  and  distributed  the  photographs  carelessly 
through  the  eight  volumes;  for  instance,  they  had  a  pic- 
ture of  a  naked  woman  with  a  crescent  in  her  hair, — ■ 
they  gave  it  as  an  illustration  to  a  scholarly  report  to  the 
Congress  about  the  moon ;  and  so  on.  Finally  they  made 
a  showy  binding,  and  then  they  sold  each  set  by  sub- 
scription for  one  hundred  and  fifty  dollars. 

What  can  be  done  to  bring  the  haphazard  and 
hysterical  methods  of  bookbuying  to  desirable  conditions, 
from  which  publishers,  authors,  and  readers  may  profit 
alike?  Nothing  more  ought  to  be  necessary  than  a 
fundamental  reform  of  the  bookstores.  We  must  have 
in  every  town  large,  beautiful,  well-supplied  bookstores, 
conducted  with  some  literary  instinct.  The  German 
method  of  bringing  this  about  is  not  applicable  in  the 
United  States,  as  here  it  would  be  construed  as  unallow- 
able restraint  of  trade.  The  German  law  allows  restric- 
tion which  American  suspicion  of  monopolies  would  not 
tolerate. 

In  Germany  all  publishers  form  one  association,  no 


BOOKS  AND  BOOKSTORES  189 

member  of  which  has  a  right  to  sell  directly  to  the 
customer;  every  copy,  therefore,  goes  through  the  book- 
seller. Yet  that  alone,  if  adopted  here,  would  not  secure 
any  great  advantage,  for  it  would  be  very  doubtful 
whether  a  small  town  could  have  its  decent  bookstore,  as 
the  large  stores  in  the  big  cities  would  evidently  be  able 
to  give  a  high  discount,  and  would  thus  secure  the  whole 
trade  by  mail-orders.  The  bookshop  in  the  small  place 
would  then  be  lost.  The  really  decisive  point  is,  there- 
fore, that  no  member  of  the  German  publishers'  associa- 
tion has  a  right  to  give  books  to  a  bookstore  that  sells 
below  the  regular  retail  price.  The  customer  in  a  little 
country  town  in  Germany  can  thus  get  his  book  from 
Berlin  or  Leipzig  only  at  the  same  price  at  which  the 
store  in  the  neighboring  street  supplies  it,  and  his  neigh- 
bor can  give  him  the  further  advantage  of  a  convenient 
display.  He  trades,  therefore,  in  his  own  town;  and  in 
this  way  even  the  smallest  place  can  provide  business  for  a 
solid  bookstore  which  is  a  center  of  literary  interest. 

Such  an  agreement,  which  stimulates  the  book-loving 
instinct  through  every  county  of  the  Fatherland,  involves 
indeed  a  restraint  of  trade,  and  the  Supreme  Court  of 
the  United  States  has  decided  against  it.  The  bookstore 
which  breaks  the  price  agreement  with  one  publisher, 
and  undersells  its  neighbor,  cannot  by  any  associative 
agreement  lose  the  right  to  get  books  from  other  pub- 
lishers; yet  just  on  that  hinges  the  German  success.  But 
there  are  other  ways  to  secure  similar  results,  and  one 
especially  which  would  be  the  true  American  way :  a  com- 


190  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

bination  without  monopoly.  In  every  field  of  American 
activity  the  combinations  have  raised  the  level  of  demand 
and  supply;  It  is  high  time  that  we  get  for  the  book- 
trade  that  improvement  which  even  the  tobacco  interests 
have  introduced  for  the  sale  of  their  goods.  The  dusty 
little  cigar-shops  of  the  past  are  crowded  out  by  the  large 
stores  in  which  the  united  tobacco  companies  sell  their 
goods  under  their  own  auspices. 

It  is  by  all  means  the  best  way.  In  the  department 
stores  literature  will  never  take  a  dignified  place,  and  the 
little  bookstores,  or  rather  half-bookstores  and  quarter- 
bookstores,  which  prevail  to-day  cannot  ever  be  the  germs 
for  the  desired  development,  because  there  is  no  capital 
behind  them.  Bookstores  which  are  really  to  serve  the 
ideal  interests  of  American  culture  must  be  attractive, 
large  halls  with  a  rich  assortment,  and  a  display  with 
comfort  for  the  reader,  and  that  means  an  outlay  of 
large  capital, —  which,  Indeed,  will  earn  more  than  In 
the  dingy  shops  of  to-day.  Places  like  the  six  or  eight 
best  and  finest  bookstores  in  New  York,  Boston,  Philadel- 
phia and  Chicago  ought  to  be  several  hundred  In  number, 
spread  over  the  whole  land.  Their  function  would  be  not 
less  Important  than  that  of  the  public  library.  And  all 
this  Is  possible  at  once  if  the  publishers  themselves  would 
unite  their  energies,  and  together  create  bookstores  in 
which  all  products  of  their  publishing  houses  should  be 
on  continuous  display.  They  have  the  capital,  and  they 
would  find  this  method  ultimately  cheaper  than  their 
present    catalogue    system;    It    would    swell    the    home 


BOOKS  AND  BOOKSTORES  191 

libraries;  it  would  bring  the  quiet  and  modest  books  to  a 
dignified  sale ;  it  would  keep  the  good  books  alive  longer, 
and  would  adjust  the  sale  to  the  really  serious  needs  of 
the  public:  a  change  which  would  bring  a  strengthening 
of  every  sound  impulse  in  the  community. 

Something  of  this  kind  must  be  done,  or  the  book- 
stores will  and  must  dwindle  away  entirely,  and  with  them 
the  habit  of  reading  a  good  personally  owned  book  by 
the  home  fireplace, —  the  habit  of  reading  with  continued 
attention,  instead  of  rushing  spasmodically  through  the 
little  cut-off  pieces  of  the  illustrated  pamphlets.  Other- 
wise, instead  of  leisurely  wandering  through  the  fields  of 
literature,  there  will  soon  be  only  hasty  automobiling 
through  them,  with  a  steady  increase  of  superficiality; 
and,  worst  of  all,  the  authors  will  be  more  and  more 
forced  to  adapt  themselves  to  such  conditions.  Ameri- 
can literature  will  become  more  and  more  hasty  and  oc- 
casional, while  we  are  all  longing  for  that  great,  new, 
upward  movement  of  American  literature  for  which  the 
time  seems  ripe  and  the  gods  seem  willing. 


IX 
THE  WORLD  LANGUAGE 


IX 

THE   WORLD   LANGUAGE 

'T^HE  Simplified  Spelling  Board  has  every  reason  to 
spell  Success  with  a  capital.  Theodore  Roosevelt 
marches  in  front  of  the  army,  brilliant  scholars  carry 
the  colors,  eminent  authors  beat  the  drum,  great  diction- 
ary-makers belong  to  the  general  staff,  and  Andrew  Car- 
negie looks  after  the  pay-roll;  a  triumphant  progress  is 
thus  certain.  And  even  though  a  word  of  comment  may 
yet  seem  proper  for  one  or  another  who  hates  to  learn 
anew,  certainly  the  foreigner,  at  least,  ought  to  keep 
silent;  and  one  who,  like  me,  spoke  the  first  English 
sentence  of  his  life  only  after  having  been  made  a  pro- 
fessor in  Harvard  University,  should  be  the  last  to  ven- 
ture an  opinion. 

Yet  the  Simplified  Spelling  Board  says  solemnly: 
"  The  Board  expects  and  welcomes  criticism ;  it  asks  only 
that  the  criticisms  shall  be  made  after  and  not  before 
the  critic  has  read  the  publications  of  the  Board."  And 
if  in  critical  mood  you  turn  to  the  Board's  publications, 
you  find  very  soon  that  the  foreigner  is  not  by  any  means 
so  negligible  a  quantity  in  the  matter  of  spelling.  Take 
the  first  Circular  which  the  Board  has  published;  you  need 
not  read  more  than  the  first  paragraph,  to  perceive  that 

195 


196  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

after  all  we  "  strangers  beyond  the  seas  "  are  very  near 
to  the  heart  of  every  simplified  speller.  The  opening  of 
the  first  proud  proclamation  reads  as  follows:  "All 
whose  mother-tongue  is  English  believe  that,  If  it  Is  not 
unfairly  handicapped,  it  will  become  the  dominant  and 
international  language  of  the  world.  For  this  destiny 
it  is  fitted  by  Its  use  as  the  medium  of  the  widest  com- 
merce and  the  most  progressive  civilization,  by  its 
cosmopolitan  vocabulary,  and  by  its  grammatical  sim- 
plicity. No  other  existing  speech,  and  none  of  the  pro- 
posed artificial  international  languages  has  the  same 
adaptability  to  such  a  use.  There  Is,  however,  a  wide- 
spread and  well-grounded  conviction  that  In  Its  progress 
toward  this  goal  our  language  Is  handicapped  by  one 
thing,  and  only  one  —  its  intricate  and  disordered  spelling 
which  makes  it  a  puzzle  to  the  stranger  within  our  gates 
and  a  mystery  to  the  stranger  beyond  the  seas.  English 
Is  easy,  adaptable,  and  capable  of  many-sided  develop- 
ment: Its  spelling  is  difficult  and  cumbersome." 

Does  not  such  an  Introduction  of  the  Board's  work 
give  to  every  well-meaning  foreigner  the  right  to  look 
into  the  matter  with  his  own  eyes?  As  regards  that 
question  which  the  Board  first  raises  I.  e.,  simplifying 
the  task  of  the  foreign  student  of  English,  no  one  in  the 
long  honorary  list,  from  Chancellor  Andrews  to  President 
Woodward,  seems  to  be  such  a  trustworthy  authority  as 
any  little  school-boy  in  France  or  Germany  or  Italy.  Is 
it  true  that  difficulties  which  the  foreigner  encounters  in 
acquiring  his  English  are  those  which  our  simplifiers  are 


THE  WORLD  LANGUAGE  197 

going  to  remove  ?  This  pretension,  at  least,  I  venture  to 
deny  with  full  conviction.  Professor  Brander  Matthews 
and  his  followers  gave  out  at  first  three  hundred  words 
which  are  to  be  improved.  Send  them  over  to  the  boys 
and  girls  "  beyond  the  seas  "  who  are  grinding  at  their 
English  grammar  to-day,  and  tell  them  that  the  happy 
day  has  come  when  their  despair  shall  be  ended.  But 
they  will  shake  their  heads.  They  will  feel  as  if  you 
had  told  them  that  their  history  learning  was  too  heavy 
a  burden,  and  that  therefore,  in  future,  the  teacher  would 
omit  the  little  anecdotes  from  the  lives  of  the  heroes. 
No,  for  them  the  spell  which  needs  dispelling  is  not  mis- 
spelling. 

The  fundamental  difficulty  of  English  for  us  foreigners 
is,  of  course,  the  pronunciation;  then  comes  the  abundance 
of  synonyms,  then  the  many  characteristic  idioms  and, 
certainly  of  minor  importance,  many  tricks  of  spelling, — 
but  not  the  spelling  of  such  words  as  the  famous  three 
hundred  words.  Let  us  not  forget  that  the  foreigner  — 
I  do  not  speak  of  the  hotel  waiter  —  sees  the  English 
words  before  he  hears  them;  and  that  makes  all  the 
difference.  To  him,  the  words  are,  for  a  long  while, 
the  printed  letters  on  the  page,  and  he  has  thus  no  other 
natural  interest  than  that  those  words  shall  suggest  as 
much  as  possible  of  their  meaning  and  their  internal 
structure  in  their  outer  appearance.  The  more  hints  and 
signs  there  are  to  indicate  which  is  which,  the  more  easily 
he  will  find  his  way  in  the  wilderness.  The  more 
vividly  the  analogies,  not  of  sound  but  of  grammatical 


t9S  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

formation,  are  felt  in  the  look  of  the  words,  the  more 
quickly  he  will  feel  familiar  among  the  strangers. 

Let  us  take  an  illustration  referring  to  a  large  propor- 
tion of  the  three  hundred  words  destined  for  mutilation. 
For  the  school-boy,  who  begins  with  the  conjugation, 
nothing  is  easier  than  to  learn  that  the  ending  "  ed  "  in- 
dicates the  participle.  Nothing,  perhaps,  gives  to  the 
eye  of  the  foreign  reader  such  a  feeling  of  safety. 
That  is  now  gone ;  the  poor  boy  will  have  simply  to  learn 
by  heart  the  sixty-two  new  verbs  whose  participle  goes 
in  future  without  this  "  ed  "-ification.  I  hear  whole  classes 
reciting  sadly,  "  Exceptions  from  the  rule  of  '  ed '  are 
addrest,  affixt,  blest,  blusht,  carest,  chapt,  clapt,  dipt, 
comprest,  con f est,  and  so  forth."  And  if  the  grammar 
copies  its  information  from  the  Circular  of  the  Spelling 
Board  itself,  those  poor  children  will  read  the  list  of  ex- 
ceptions in  a  paragraph  which  itself  contains  the  parti- 
ciples spelled,  mentioned,  handicapped,  ignored,  and 
others  which  seem  to  them  of  the  same  order.  There  re- 
mains for  them  no  other  consolation  than  the  thought  that 
these  are  just  "  the  exceptions,"  and  that  their  Latin 
grammar  has  somewhat  accustomed  them  to  consider  ex- 
ception as  the  legalized  cruelty  of  grammarians ;  but  that 
such  new  punishments  for  foreign  children  should  be  in- 
vented in  Madison  Avenue,  New  York,  would  strike 
them  as  surprising. 

But  even  if  after  a  few  weeks'  additional  training  the 
new  exceptions  are  memorized  in  addition  to  the  old  ones, 
is  it  not  still  true  that  the   foreigner  has  lost  by  this 


THE  WORLD  LANGUAGE  199 

change  his  possibility  of  quick  and  easy  orientation  in 
the  seen  sentence, —  which  alone  was  his  purpose?  He 
has  not  in  mind  a  well  pronounced  sentence  which  he  is 
trying  to  write  down.  Just  the  contrary:  his  pronuncia- 
tion remains  for  a  long  while  so  incorrect  and  poor  that 
any  caricature  of  spelling  would  be  for  him  sufficiently 
phonetic.  What  he  needs  is  to  be  able  to  recognize  clearly 
the  inner  relations  of  the  words  on  the  printed  page. 
That  alone  can  attract  the  foreigner,  and  every  difficulty 
in  such  a  direction  makes  him  shrink  from  the  foreign 
idiom.  But  can  we  doubt  that  the  alteration  of  the  sixty- 
two  participles  works  diametrically  again  his  comfort? 
Kist  is  now  to  be  written  like  list,  prest  like  rest,  discust 
like  disgust.  Even  the  obscuring  words  with  a  double 
meaning  have  beenjncreased :  mist  is  now  mist  and  missed; 
past  is  now  past  and  passed;  and  yet  nowhere  unity: 
wisht  but  not  jisht,  winkt  but  not  linkt.  You  could  not 
make  it  worse  for  the  foreigner ;  whether  pleasant  for  the 
English-born,  It  Is  not  for  me  to  utter  an  opinion. 

The  vowels  do  not  fare  better  than  the  consonants.  Of 
course,  the  English  child,  who  hears  the  simple  sounds  of 
though  and  through  in  the  nursery  and  learns  much  later 
how  to  write  them,  may  be  Irritated  by  the  complexity. 
But  the  foreign  school-boy  who  sees  words  of  that  type 
has  not  the  slightest  difficulty  with  them.  To  learn  how 
they  are  pronounced  Is  very  easy  because  they  stick  in  the 
imagination  just  through  their  curious  configuration:  no 
German  or  French  word  looks  like  them  —  they  are  taken 
as  Interesting  freaks  of  language,  which  are  the  more  Im- 


200  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

pressive  on  account  of  their  very  originality.  Just  so  it 
was  easy  for  us,  in  the  geography  lesson,  to  read  the  word 
"  Worcester."  Such  grotesque  abnormities  are  quite 
handy  for  the  foreigner.  Now  he  is  suddenly  to  see  the 
word  tho  written  like  who,  and  once  again  he  loses  a  con- 
venient landmark  in  the  printed  sentence.  But  perhaps 
he  is  still  more  puzzled  by  thru,  when  he  is  required  to 
speak  it  like  shoe  and  true.  And  with  the  edict  of  the 
Board  that  clew  become  clue,  queue  become  cue,  and  woe 
become  wo,  the  helps  for  the  eye  are  gone.  You  have 
only  to  write  the  three  words  to,  two,  and  too  simply  tu, 
in  harmony  with  thru,  to  make  the  phonetic  victory  com- 
plete. Is  this  a  help  to  the  foreigner  who  asks  nothing 
but  to  see  with  ease  the  differences  between  the  words? 

I  started  to  speak  only  as  a  German,  but  at  this  point 
I  am  strongly  reminded  that  I  have  not  only  a  national- 
ity but  also  a  profession;  I  feel  inclined  to  add  a  word  as 
a  psychologist.  If  you  want  to  bring  about  the  under- 
standing of  a  written  or  spoken  sentence,  do  not  believe 
that  it  is  most  quickly  reached  by  a  straight  approach.  In 
geometry  it  holds  true  that  a  straight  line  is  the  shortest 
way  between  two  points ;  in  practical  psychology  it  is  mostly 
not  true.  The  natural  language  knows  that,  and  always 
avoids  the  simplest  means  because  they  are  not  sufficient 
for  our  mental  make-up;  the  mind  needs  helps  and  hints 
and  side-lights,  and  the  more  complex  the  suggestions,  the 
easier  and  firmer  the  grasp. 

The  phoneticians  habitually  make  here,  in  questions  of 
writing,  the  same  mistake  which  the  inventors  of  artificial 


THE  WORLD  LANGUAGE  201 

languages  have  always  made  in  questions  of  grammar. 
The  heralds  of  Esperanto  assure  us,  for  example,  that  it 
is  a  defect  of  such  badly  manufactured  languages  as  Greek 
and  Latin,  or  German  and  English,  that  the  same  gram- 
matical relation  has  usually  been  expressed  in  various  ways 
at  the  same  time.  For  instance,  when  the  substantive  is 
in  the  plural  form,  it  is  a  ridiculous  waste  of  human  en- 
ergy, they  say,  to  put  the  verb  in  the  plural,  too.  If  we 
say,  "  the  child  cries,"  and  "  the  children  cry,"  we  indicate 
by  two  different  methods  that  it  is  in  one  case  one  baby, 
in  the  other  case  several.  If  we  change  the  verb,  we  may 
leave  the  substantive  unchanged,  or  vice  versa.  The  arti- 
ficial language,  of  course,  interdicts  such  foul  play.  Yet, 
while  all  this  might  be  true  for  some  improved  variety 
of  beings,  simple  psychological  experiments  can  prove  that 
it  does  not  hold  for  our  particular  brand  of  soul.  One 
stimulus  does  not  work  easily  enough  with  us;  we  need  a 
certain  superfluity  of  suggestion.  Otherwise,  it  would  not 
be  so  difficult  to  read  proof:  we  overlook  the  misprints 
because  the  wrong  letter  does  not  strike  us,  since  a  letter 
by  itself  comes  to  our  consciousness  only  by  special  effort. 
Every  individual  letter  is  strengthened  by  its  neighbors. 
In  the  same  way,  every  grammatical  point  must  be  brought 
out  repeatedly,  one  hint  must  help  another,  and  if  two 
children  cry  we  must  say  at  least  twice,  in  the  substantive 
and  in  the  verb,  that  it  is  not  one  child.  Otherwise,  we 
should  need  an  excessive  strain  of  attention,  such  as  the 
proof-reader  needs  for  the  scrutiny  of  his  text,  and  reading 
and  listening  would  become  an  exhausting  labor. 


202  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

In  just  this  way  the  written  image  may  tell  us  much 
which  seems  logically  superfluous  since  it  brings  out  ele- 
ments of  the  word  that  cannot  be  pronounced,  and  which 
phonetic  spelling  seeks  to  abolish.  But  just  as  well  might 
we  propose  to  close  one  eye  in  reading,  for  the  reason  that 
the  nervous  processes  in  the  second  open  eye  and  in  the 
corresponding  half  of  the  brain  are  a  shameful  waste  of 
neuron-activity.  Indeed,  we  can  read  "  just  as  well  "  with 
one  eye,  and  hear  with  one  ear;  and  yet  nature  knew  bet- 
ter :  this  luxury  is  economy.  Give  us  as  many  optical  hints 
for  the  discrimination  of  the  words  as  possible,  and  the 
more  we  apparently  waste,  the  more  we  save.  Simplicity 
and  uniformity  are  the  only,  real  waste,  because  they  de- 
mand from  us  an  amount  of  attention  which  is  ruinous  in 
its  cumulation ;  they  perhaps  reduce  the  expense  for  print- 
er's ink ;  but  they  increase  neurasthenia  among  the  millions 
of  newspaper  readers. 

And,  quite  by  the  way,  is  really  nothing  to  be  said  for 
those  sybarites  who  like  to  indulge  in  the  luxury  of  super- 
fluous letters  for  the  historical  flavor  they  give  the  word, 
even  where  they  are  not  needed  for  its  easier  grasping? 
Our  simplifiers  want  us  to  write  good-by;  but  when  the  last 
good-bye  has  been  spoken,  will  the  simpler  form  still  bring 
to  our  imagination  the  suggestion  of  "  God  be  with  you  "? 
And  when  fantom  is  written  like  fan,  and  prolog  like  a 
king  of  log,  and  subpena  as  if  it  were  ashamed  of  its  Latin, 
and  so  on,  do  not  most  of  the  overtones  disappear? 
Moreover,  even  these  historical  side-lights  help  toward 
quick  discrimination ;  anything  which  stands  for  difference 


THE  WORLD  LANGUAGE  203 

will  help  to  distinguish,  and  that  alone  is  the  purpose. 
It  may  be  easier  to  rush  with  an  automobile  through  the 
American  cities  with  their  rectangular,  parallel  streets, 
one  block  exactly  like  another;  but  it  is  certainly  much 
easier  to  know  at  every  moment  where  we  are,  in  the 
picturesque,  irregular  streets  of  Europe,  which  show  the 
growth  of  eventful  centuries.  If  superfluous  letters  must 
go,  why  not,  at  least,  begin  where  no  such  historical  rem- 
iniscences are  in  the  way  ?  It  is,  for  instance,  well  known 
that  the  g  in  foreign  stands  there  without  any  historical 
justification;  but  it  is  just  these  perversities  of  spelling 
that  our  Spelling  Board  leaves  unsimplified. 

Let  us  return  to  our  Circular.  We  know  its  first  para- 
graph appealing  to  the  foreigner.  The  second  paragraph 
changes  the  topic  entirely;  and  yet,  I  am  afraid,  it  is  the 
German  again  who  is  most  nearly  touched  by  the  discus- 
sion. I  thus  feel  justified  in  going  on  with  my  quotation 
of  this  first  pronunciamento.  The  Circular  continues  as 
follows:  "Apart  from  its  relation  to  the  foreigner,  our 
intricate  and  disordered  spelling  also  places  a  direct  bur- 
den upon  every  native  user  of  English.  It  wastes  a  large 
part  of  the  time  and  effort  given  to  the  instruction  of  our 
children,  keeping  them,  for  example,  from  one  to  two 
years  behind  the  school  children  of  Germany  and  condemn- 
ing many  of  them  to  alleged  illiteracy  all  their  days." 

If  this  is  the  sign  under  which  the  reformers  hope  to 
win,  I,  for  one,  feel  sure  that  their  error  turns  here  into 
a  menace.  The  spirit  of  this  statement  contains  a  subtle 
but  grave  danger  for  our  whole  American  school  work. 


204  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

The  consequences  must  become  the  more  ruinous  from  the 
fact  that  some  of  the  educational  leaders  belong  to  the 
Board  and  thus  unconsciously  add  the  weight  of  their  au- 
thority to  these  misleading  arguments.  But  my  demurrer 
must  not  be  misplaced.  I  subscribe,  of  course,  with  full 
conviction  to  the  view  that  the  American  school  children 
are  from  one  to  two  years  behind  the  school  children  of 
Germany.  I  should  not  hesitate  to  say  even  that  the  dif- 
ference may  be  more  correctly  called  two  to  three  years. 
But  I  deny  absolutely  that  this  has  anything  to  do  with 
the  difference  in  the  difficulty  of  spelling  the  native  tongue. 
It  is  sufficient  to  consider  the  one  fact  that  every  German 
school  child  has  to  learn,  not  merely  one  method  of  writ- 
ing and  reading  the  German  language,  but  two ;  he  studies 
the  international  Latin  printing  and  writing  which  the 
Germans  share  with  the  English,  and  at  the  same  time  the 
more  difficult  and  morfc  fatiguing  so-called  Gothic  letters 
in  written  and  printed  form.  The  writing,  especially, 
in  two  alphabets,  with  the  difficult  Gothic  capitals,  enor- 
mously multiplies  the  obstacles  in  the  way  of  the  little 
school  child.  If  the  Germans  used  only  the  Latin  letters, 
the  child  would  be  surely  half  a  year  ahead  of  his  present 
place  in  his  other  studies.  Is  It  necessary  to  point  to  the 
further  fact  that  the  formation  of  sentences  and  the  whole 
style  in  German  is  more  complex  and  thus  needs  much 
more  school  training  for  correct  expression? 

Even  the  spelling  is  in  many  respects  not  less  bewildering 
than  that  of  English.  It  may  be  that  the  American  who 
learns  German  Is  less  aware  of  the  trickery  in  spelling, 


THE  WORLD  LANGUAGE  205 

for  the  same  reasons  which  make  the  foreigner  content 
with  the  English  spelling.  The  American,  too,  sees  the 
German  words  as  soon  as  he  hears  them,  and  welcomes 
the  optical  differences  between  dir  and  tier  and  ihr,  or  be- 
tween er  and  leer  and  mehr,  and  so  on.  But  for  the  Ger- 
man child  who  speaks  the  words  first  and  knows  their 
sounds  to  be  the  same,  the  difficulties  of  spelling  arise  in 
the  school-room.  It  is  therefore  utterly  arbitrary  to  sug- 
gest that  the  burden  of  the  American  school  child  is 
heavier  than  that  of  the  German;  the  double  German 
script  is  alone  sufficient  to  put  a  much  heavier  weight  on 
the  young  German  shoulders.  And  yet  those  German 
children  are,  in  spite  of  their  harder  work,  one  to  two 
years  ahead,  as  the  Board  confesses. 

The  only  logical  conclusion  is  that  this  delay  in  the  ed- 
ucational development  of  the  American  school  child  rests 
on  quite  different  grounds.  It  is  not  difficult  to  find  them. 
The  explanation  lies  in  the  poorness  of  the  average  school 
instruction :  the  lack  of  thoroughness  and  mental  discipline 
and  accuracy  in  every  subject.  This  is  not  the  place  to  in- 
quire into  the  deeper  causes  of  this  fact.  We  cannot  ask 
here  how  far  the  insufficient  preparation  of  the  school- 
teachers is  responsible ;  how  far  wrong  methods  of  instruc- 
tion; how  far  the  whole  spirit  of  the  country  which  en- 
courages and  endorses  this  superficiality;  or  how  far  the 
carelessness  and  indulgence  of  the  parents  is  to  be  blamed. 
But  it  is  certain  that  the  lack  of  accuracy  in  spelling  har- 
monizes completely  with  the  lack  of  accuracy  and  of  solid 
discipline  in  every  other  school  subject.     The  blunders  in 


2o6  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

spelling  are  more  easily  visible,  but  the  "  illiteracy  "  in 
history,  geography,  and  arithmetic  is  in  no  way  less  fre- 
quent. 

It  is,  of  course,  not  inspiring  that  a  doctor-candidate 
should  have  written  to  me  last  week  about  "  excepting  " 
a  position;  but  spelling  is  there  in  no  worse  case  than  all 
the  other  requisites  of  education.  Are  the  Germans,  per- 
haps, quicker  at  figures,  or  is  the  American  multiplication 
table  also  more  difficult  than  the  German?  In  highly  ed- 
ucated Cambridge  are  two  telegraph  offices  in  the  shadow 
of  the  University.  For  years  I  have  sent  from  them 
cablegrams  to  Germany;  every  word  costs  twenty-five 
cents,  and  nothing  seems  simpler  than  to  reckon  that  four 
quarters  make  one  dollar  and  eight  quarters  two  dollars. 
Employees  in  those  two  offices  have  changed  frequently, 
and  yet  I  can  report  the  exact  fact  that  not  only  has  no 
employee  ever  tried  to  calculate  the  price  without  paper 
and  pencil,  but  that  the  result  has  been  wrong  two  times 
out  of  three.  The  last  time,  the  cablegram  had  nine 
words,  and  the  young  man  calculated  on  paper  that  nine 
times  twenty-five  make  one  dollar  and  eighty-seven  cents. 

And  this  inability  of  the  large  mass  of  American  school 
children  to  do  anything  accurately  goes  on  throughout 
the  high  schools  and  into  the  colleges.  It  cannot  be  other- 
wise. Where  the  habit  of  strict  mental  discipline  is  not 
acquired  from  the  very  first,  intellectual  disorderliness  be- 
comes habit.  The  students  may  read  much,  may  be  in- 
dustrious, and  may  absorb  immense  quantities,  but  they 
do  not  master  anything  completely.     Whoever  feels  an 


THE  WORLD  LANGUAGE  207 

earnest  interest  in  American  education  ought  to  give  to 
this  lack  of  carefulness  and  discipline  his  most  immediate 
attention ;  from  that  point  alone  can  we  reform  and  build 
up.  There  alone  is  the  trouble  which  makes  the  Ameri- 
can school-boy  two  years  behind  the  German :  —  because 
all  careless  and  inaccurate  learning  is  loose,  inefficient,  and 
time-wasting  learning.  The  child  must  go  scores  of  times 
over  the  same  old  ground,  and  the  teacher  must  waste  end- 
less energy  and  time  with  dreary  repetitions,  simply  be- 
cause the  child  has  not  acquired  from  the  start  the  ability 
to  give  full,  concentrated  attention  to  the  material  of 
study.  If  they  had  given  to  spelling  and  arithmetic  only 
half  the  attention  which  they  used  to  give  to  practical 
things,  for  instance  to  baseball,  then  the  school  children 
would  stand  well  in  line  with  the  German  children,  and  no 
spelling  reform  would  be  needed  as  a  new  scheme  for 
coddling  their  lazy  attention. 

But  just  because  everything  depends  upon  a  growing 
public  opinion  in  favor  of  stricter  intellectual  school  dis- 
cipline, I  call  it  a  calamity  that  the  Spelling  Board  takes 
advantage  of  the  alarming  state  of  the  schools  to  spread 
the  impression  that  the  backwardness  of  American  school 
children  results  from  the  difficulty  of  correct  spelling.  If 
this  fairy  tale  becomes  dogma,  then  every  forward  move- 
ment of  serious  educational  progress  Is  side-tracked  again 
for  a  long  while.  Then  there  is  no  longer  any  one  to 
blame;  our  women  teachers  are  then  splendidly  prepared 
for  their  task;  our  school  children  are  in  the  most  excel- 
lent frame  of  mind  for  hard  study;  the  parents  make  the 


2o8  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

most  ideal  efforts  to  develop  in  the  children  the  sense  of 
duty  and  intellectual  responsibility;  and  the  only  culprit 
is  the  treacherous  dictionary-maker  who  does  not  write 
blest  and  blusht :  in  short,  all  that  is  In  future  needed  for 
the  thoroughness  of  our  school  children  is  that  It  shall  be 
spelled  just  thoroness. 

Seriously,  this  wide-spread  Inaccuracy  demands  the  com- 
mon effort  of  the  whole  community,  and  not  the  slightest 
bit  of  this  strength  should  be  diverted.  Instead  of  sincere 
concentrated  effort,  there  comes  one  arbitrary  scheme  after 
another  to  captivate  the  attention  of  the  public.  For  a 
while  we  heard  the  cry  that  the  whole  wrong  arose  only 
because  the  teachers  did  not  know  enough  psychology. 
The  public,  justly  anxious  to  improve  the  defective 
schools,  rushed  at  once  into  the  psychological  track;  the 
teachers  became  overfed  with  psychological  pedagogics. 
The  public  felt  proud  that  something  was  being  done,  and 
yet,  the  schools  still  remained  backward.  It  could  not  be 
otherwise,  because  no  psychology  and  no  pedagogics  can 
be  a  substitute  for  the  first  demand  —  that  the  teacher 
shall  know  the  subject  which  she  is  to  teach.  And  the 
chase  In  the  wrong  direction,  of  course,  delayed  progress 
in  the  right  one.  This  time  it  is  not  the  teacher  but  the 
pupil  for  whom  the  remedy  is  advertised.  The  pupil 
must  have  a  simpler  spelling-book;  then  everything  will 
be  all  right,  and  the  two  years'  difference  from  the  Ger- 
man boy  will  be  got  over.  I  am  afraid  It  will  turn  atten- 
tion-again  In  a  misleading  direction,  and  the  real  evil  will 
go  on.     And  yet  the  children  deserve  something  which  Is 


THE  WORLD  LANGUAGE  209 

more  valuable  for  life  than  three  hundred  simplified  words 
down  to  wisky,  wilful,  woful,  and  wrapt;  they  deserve 
that  the  school  shall  give  them  a  training  in  accurate 
methods  of  learning  and  thought. 

But  let  us  hope  that  the  school  children  are  only  brought 
in  for  stage  effect.  This  seems  the  more  probable  inas- 
much as  it  is  not  quite  easy  to  see  how  these^three  hundred 
changes  can  disburden  the  speller  at  all.  For  we  hear  very 
soon  that,  in  the  opinion  of  the  Board,  for  most  of  these 
words  both  ways  of  spelling,  the  simplified  and  the  cum- 
bersome one,  have  always  been  correct.  You  had  always 
the  moral  right  to  put  down  both  omelet  and  omelette, 
medieval  and  mediaeval,  program  and  programme,  and  so 
on.  These  were  the  fortunate  words  which  could  hardly 
be  misspelled;  since,  on  whichever  side  you  fell,  it  was 
right.  Thus  the  new  prescription  makes  it  harder,  for 
the  boy  in  future  has  a  choice  no  longer,  but  must  learn 
carefully  to  avoid  that  form  which  he  finds  in  most  books. 

Thus,  I  say,  the  children  are  only  a  side-issue,  and  the 
main  point  is  that  only  the  simplified  English  has  hopes  of 
becoming  "  the  international  language."  We  may  return 
once  more  to  this  beautiful  dream.  Is  there,  indeed,  any 
prospect  that  English,  reformed  or  unreformed,  may  be- 
come the  language  of  the  world?  Of  course,  even  the 
linguistic  Anglomaniacs  probably  do  not  anticipate  that 
the  fifteen  hundred  other  languages  will  be  abolished,  like 
slavery,  and  all  humanity  declared  free  to  use  the  simpli- 
fied English.  Eastern  Asia  will  probably  go  on  with 
Chinese,  spoken  to-day  by  four  hundred  millions,  and  with 


2IO  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

Japanese;  South  America  will  go  on  with  Spanish;  the 
hundred  and  twenty  millions  of  Russia  may  go  on  with 
Russian;  and  even  German,  French,  Italian,  and  the  rest 
may  still  resist  for  a  while,  till  they  are  classed  with  the 
languages  of  the  cuneiform  writings  as  extinct  specimens. 
The  only  serious  question,  therefore,  can  be  whether  we 
may  expect  that  the  non-English-speaking  civilized  nations 
will  agree  to  use  English  as  the  medium  of  international 
exchange.  In  that  case  the  Americans  would  need  Eng- 
lish only,  while  the  Frenchmen  would  have  to  learn  both 
French  and  English,  and  so  forth. 

I  am  convinced  that  such  a  time  will  never  come  and 
that  in  spite  of  surface  indications  the  chances  for  it  were 
never  worse ;  every  argument  for  simplified  spelling  which 
comes  from  these  hopes  seems  to  me,  therefore,  completely 
illusory.  When  the  Volapiik  people  dreamt  their  short 
dream,  and  now,  when  the  Esperanto  phantasts  have  had 
their  so-called  international  meetings,  they  have  rested 
always  in  one  fundamental  creed  which,  they  said,  had  the 
certainty  of  an  axiom:  that  the  political  and  economical 
situation  of  the  civilized  world  makes  it  impossible  for  the 
living  language  of  one  country  to  become  the  international 
idiom  of  all  others.  And  surely  no  one  can  attack  the 
Esperanto  movement  as  far  as  this  self-evident  principle 
is  concerned. 

Esperanto,  to  be  sure,  builds  on  this  foundation  an  ut- 
terly unsafe  structure,  made  up  from  all  kinds  of  broken 
and  crumbled  and  unshaped  pieces,  and  calls  it  the  temple 
of  international  language.     The  fact  that  it  is  nobody's 


THE  WORLD  LANGUAGE  an 

language  is  its  one  true  recommendation  for  becoming 
everybody's  language;  even  though  everybody  must  feel 
that  such  a  lifeless,  artificial  syllable  series  makes  no  or- 
ganic words  and  sentences.  It  is  not  and  cannot  be  a 
language.  Such  a  linguistic  manufacture  is  at  best  a 
mechanical  tool  like  short-hand,  which  might  be  useful  for 
a  few  definite  purposes, —  especially  if  the  manufacturers 
should  succeed  in  mixing  in  their  laboratory  a  word  code 
having  less  the  flavor  of  one  particular  group  of  languages 
than  Esperanto.  Esperanto  is,  of  course,  essentially  a 
mutilation  of  Spanish  and  French,  and  therefore  sym- 
pathetic to  the  members  of  the  French  Academy,  who  rec- 
ommend it  because  they  feel  that  its  international  accept- 
ance would  throw  aside  the  rights  of  Teutonic  linguistic  in- 
stincts. 

The  real  mistake  of  the  Esperanto  Utopians  is  that 
they  do  not  inquire  whether  the  necessity  for  one  exclusive 
common  language  has  any  real  existence.  There  is,  per- 
haps, one  field  in  which  a  linguistic  uniformity  must  be 
desired:  that  of  international  law.  But  this  monopoly 
belongs  to  French  and  can  hardly  be  taken  away :  all  the 
international  treaties  for  a  long  time  have  been  written 
in  French,  and  their  rendering  into  another  language 
would  open  endless  and  dangerous  conflicts  of  interpreta- 
tion. There  is  no  other  field  in  which  community  of 
language  is  essential.  In  the  international  scientific 
congresses,  which  furnish  the  favorite  argument  for  our 
reformers,  hardly  anyone  takes  part  who  is  not  in  any 
case  obliged  to  follow  scientific  literature  in  at  least  the 


212  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

three  languages  of  English,  German,  and  French.  In 
commercial  relations,  success  has  always  come  to  him  who 
masters  the  language  of  the  customer;  if  a  business  house 
wants  the  trade  of  South  America  it  is  more  natural  to 
expect  that  one  of  its  clerks  will  learn  Spanish  than  that 
all  Argentine  and  Brazil  will  learn  Volapiik,  a  task  about 
as  interesting  as  that  of  acquiring  the  Cable  Code. 

There  remains,  of  course,  the  possibility  that  we  travel; 
and  that  we  feel  it  our  duty  to  wander  through  Italy  with- 
out condescending  to  learn  Italian  and  to  stroll  through 
Paris  without  a  word  of  French.  Then  Esperanto  is  to 
be  our  help  and  blessing.  One  of  the  leaders  of  the 
movement  says :  "  All  that  is  necessary  is  that  in  future 
every  child  in  the  civilized  world  shall  learn  in  the  primary 
school,  besides  his  own  native  language,  the  vocabulary 
and  grammer  of  Esperanto;  then,  finally,  we  may  travel 
even  through  Roumania,  and  if  a  button  comes  off  our 
coat,  we  can  go  into  any  shop  on  the  street  and  ask  the 
salesgirl,  in  Esperanto,  for  the  button,  and  she  will  give, 
in  Esperanto,  the  price  of  it."  What  a  glorious  perspec- 
tive !  To  be  sure,  there  may  be  Americans  who  have 
discovered  that  even  in  Roumania  a  full  pocket-book 
speaks  a  species  of  international  language  which  is  suffi- 
cient to  buy  any  variety  of  buttons.  And  some  others 
may  think  it  perhaps  a  little  out  of  proportion  that  the 
country  boy  in  Ohio  or  Illinois,  or  in  Russia  or  Spain  or 
Roumania,  who  may  never  in  his  life  leave  his  native 
land  and  may  never  in  his  life  meet  at  home  a  foreign 
guest,  should  yet  have  to  learn  a  second  language  in  an- 


THE  WORLD  LANGUAGE  213 

ticipation  of  a  stranger's  losing  a  button.  And  if  the 
American  boy  really  wastes  more  than  a  year  in  largely 
unsuccessful  attempts  to  learn  the  spelling  of  his  own 
tongue :  will  he  be  delighted  with  the  prospect  of  learning 
the  intricacies  of  Esperanto,  too,  which  offers  only  the 
one  consolation  —  that  you  can  learn  it  pretty  quickly 
provided  you  master  well  your  Latin,  French,  Italian,  and 
Spanish? 

One  other  thing  seems  to  the  Esperantists  not  quite 
so  familiar  as  it  is  to  anyone  who,  like  me,  daily  uses 
two  languages.  The  real  understanding  hangs  on  the 
pronunciation,  and  this  cannot  be  learned  at  will.  I  am 
afraid  the  Esperanto  learned  in  the  Nebraska  country 
school  might,  after  all,  sound  like  Chinese  to  the  sales- 
girl in  the  Roumanian  department  store;  the  pronuncia- 
tions would  be  too  different.  Many  of  my  Harvard 
students  can  read  German  scientific  books  easily;  but  if 
they  begin  to  quote,  I  have  to  ask  them  to  translate  the 
text  into  English;  and  while  most  of  my  colleagues  arc 
excellent  German  scholars,  I  know  very  few  who  pro- 
nounce my  name  correctly.  On  the  other  side,  of  course, 
the  same  condition  prevails.  Moreover,  as  is  natural, 
an  unusual  foreign  pronunciation  is  less  well  understood, 
the  less  educated  the  hearer.  I  remember  that  some  years 
ago  I  spoke  in  a  large  American  city  before  an  audience 
of  a  thousand  persons,  mostly  teachers.  I  spoke  for  an 
hour  and  a  half  without  notes,  and  they  listened  so  at- 
tentively that  I  felt  quite  happy  in  the  thought  that  I  had 
acquired  a   sufficient  grasp   of  English   to  hold  such   a 


214  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

crowd  on  a  difficult  subject.  But  when  I  proudly  left 
the  hall  and  took  a  cab  to  go  to  my  hotel,  the  driver 
absolutely  could  not  understand  where  I  wanted  to  go;  my 
foreign  R,  in  speaking  the  name  of  the  hotel,  did  not  roll 
as  he  was  accustomed  to  hear  it.  I  had  to  write  down 
the  name  of  the  hotel,  and  he  looked  with  pity  on  the 
man  who  did  not  know  any  English.  And  so  I  always 
found  it  much  easier  to  give  addresses  to  teachers  than 
to  give  addresses  to  cabmen;  how  can  Esperanto  help  us 
in  such  a  chaos  of  human  labials  and  gutturals? 

But  all  the  blunders  of  the  patent-language  inventors 
cannot  justify  us  in  denying  that  their  fundamental  creed 
is  right;  no  living  language  can  become  to-day  the  vehicle 
of  intercourse  for  the  whole  civilized  world,  and  it  is 
absurd  to  look  for  such  a  thing.  The  acceptance  of  any 
language,  were  it  English  or  French  or  Spanish,  German 
or  Dutch,  Russian  or  Japanese,  would  immediately  not 
only  crush  the  pride  of  the  other  nations  but  would  give 
to  the  favored  people  such  an  enormous  advantage  in  the 
control  of  the  political  world  and  such  immeasurable 
preference  in  the  world's  market  that  no  nation  would 
consent  to  it  before  its  downfall. 

For  that  reason  I  said  that  the  chances  were  never 
worse ;  the  spirit  of  strenuous,  yet  friendly  rivalry  between 
the  nations  in  the  markets  of  the  world  was  never  more 
wide-awake,  and  the  feeling  of  national  honor  was  never 
purer  and  nobler.  The  more  the  hopes  for  international 
arbitration  become  realized,  the  more  they  are  eager  and 


THE  WORLD  LANGUAGE  215 

ought  to  be  eager  to  keep  clear  their  own  individuality, 
together  with  their  own  rights  and  duties,  their  own 
successes  and  responsibilities.  Andrew  Carnegie's  liberal- 
ity may  build  a  palace  in  The  Hague  in  which  a  concert 
of  the  most  enlightened  nations  speaks  justice  through 
its  tribunal.  But  Andrew  Carnegie  has  not  the  power 
to  elevate  his  Simplified  Spelling  Board  in  Madison 
Avenue  to  the  height  of  a  tribunal  far  superior  to  any 
Hague  Court:  a  tribunal  which  shall  decide  that  English 
ought  to  become  the  one  international  language  because 
the  English-speaking  nations  have  "  the  most  progressive 
civilization."  And  yet  just  that  is  proclaimed  in  the  very 
second  sentence  which  the  Board  has  spoken  to  the  world. 
Everyone  probably  agrees  that  mere  richness  of  means 
and  plenty  of  big  things  do  not  make  up  the  progress  of 
the  world;  the  real  progress  lies  in  the  advancement  of 
knowledge,  of  morality,  of  art,  of  religion,  of  law,  of 
literature.  If  the  foreigner's  learning  of  English  really 
meant  that  he  acknowledged  the  superiority  of  the  Eng- 
lish-speaking nations  in  all  these  realms,  the  dream  of  the 
Simplifying  Board  would  come  quickly  to  an  awakening; 
national  pride  would  justly  put  English  on  the  blacklist. 
We  should  very  soon  have  similar  Boards  in  Paris  and 
Berlin  and  so  on.  No  argument  can  more  retard  the 
spreading  of  English,  or  of  any  other  language,  than  that 
which  insists  that  its  mission  is  to  conquer  the  world. 
Might  not  the  Germans  say  with  justice  that  their  progres- 
siveness  from  the  days  of  Luther  to  the  civic  and  scientific 


2i6  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

achievements  of  the  present  day,  has  been  inferior  to 
none,  and  that  the  language  of  Goethe  and  Schiller,  of 
Kant  and  Bismark,  must  have  the  same  ambition  ? 

Or  is  the  verdict  of  the  Simplified  Spelling  Board  per- 
haps only  a  late  punishment  for  the  Germans  who  some 
centuries  ago  ruined  the  English  Spelling?  The  Board 
itself  reports  that  the  earliest  printers  in  England  were 
not  Englishmen;  mostly  they  were  Germans  or  Dutch 
to  whom  English  was  a  foreign  language.  They  made, 
of  course,  blunders  in  setting  up  books  in  a  language  which 
they  only  half  knew.  The  orginal  editions  of  Eliza- 
bethan literature  thus  became  "  a  marvel  of  typographic 
incompetency  and  of  orthographic  recklessness."  And 
when  the  reaction  brought  an  agreement  for  uniform 
spelling,  it  was  achieved  by  the  acceptance  of  the  stand- 
ards set  by  the  printers  themselves.  All  that  is  certainly 
very  bad.  But  first,  even  this  does  not  prove  that  the 
Germans  are  less  progressive;  since  they  knew  how  to 
print  at  a  time  when  the  Englishmen  did  not.  And 
further,  the  Simplified  Spelling  Board  ought  to  be  the 
last  group  of  men  to  take  vengeance,  as  without  the  in- 
competency and  recklessness  of  those  old  German  printers 
the  whole  Board  might  have  nothing  to  do,  and  the  quar- 
ters in  Madison  Avenue  might  stand  empty. 

In  truth,  there  is  no  hope  and  there  is  no  need  for  a 
real  international  language,  either  an  artificial  or  a  living 
one.  The  times  of  long  ago,  when  the  scholarly  men,  at 
least,  all  spoke  and  wrote  in  Latin,  cannot  come  back. 
There  is  to-day  only  one  international  language  necessary 


THE  WORLD  LANGUAGE  217 

and  possible;  the  language  of  good-will  and  peace  and 
international  friendship  with  the  serious  effort  to  under- 
stand the  motives  of  our  national  neighbors  and  to  respect 
their  efforts.  This  language  of  good-will  cannot  be  made 
less  useful  by  any  variety  of  dialects  and  pronunciations; 
one  may  express  it  in  English,  another  in  German,  another 
in  Russian  or  French  or  Japanese.  Yes,  this  true  inter- 
national language  of  good-will  must  spread  more  quickly, 
the  more  serious  our  effort  to  learn  the  foreign  living 
languages;  for  the  safest  way  to  understand  the  spirit 
of  another  nation  is  by  sharing  the  enjoyment  of  her 
finest  literature.  What  is  gained  by  an  international 
word  code  which  aids  congresses  and  travelers  and  com- 
mercial clerks,  if  it  decreases  the  number  of  those  who 
can  enjoy  the  language  of  Shakspeare  and  Goethe  and 
Moliere  and  Dante?  And  it  is  not  only  the  enjoyment 
of  literature  and  the  internal  approach  to  the  soul  of  a 
foreign  nation,  it  is  the  incomparable  gain  from  the  study 
of  the  languages  themselves  which  broadens  our  whole 
personality. 

The  American  boy  who  learns  French  or  Italian  or 
German  up  to  the  point  where  a  real  feeling  for  the 
language  begins,  must  indeed  perceive  that  his  horizon 
becomes  a  new  one.  The  German  language  perhaps  ap- 
pears to  him  difficult  at  first;  then  the  moment  suddenly 
comes  when  he  feels  that  a  new  manifoldness  of  inner 
movements  has  become  living  in  his  mind  and  has  brought 
undreamt-of  satisfactions.  It  is  like  the  experience  of 
a  traveler  who  has  seen  public  buildings  only  in  the  classic 


21 8  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

column  style,  and  who  comes  to  Europe  and  beholds 
consciously  for  the  first  time  the  Gothic  churches  of 
France  and  England  and  Germany.  He  cannot  stand 
before  the  dome  of  Cologne  without  feeling  that  there 
new  energies  awake  in  his  mind.  Never  before  has  he 
seen  these  myriads  of  arcs  and  curves  and  figures,  all 
harmoniously  controlled  by  one  great  movement,  toward 
the  tower  which  points  to  heaven.  This  Gothic  style  is 
for  him  a  new  language  of  form,  and  he  is  enriched  for 
his  lifetime.  Wonderful  and  complex  like  a  Gothic 
cathedral  is  the  dome  of  the  German  language,  and  yet 
dominated  by  that  perfect  harmony  which  bends  the  mul- 
titude into  most  wonderful  unity.  To  deprive  the  youth 
of  such  beauties  and  to  make  them  believe  that  it  is  nobler 
to  demand  a  monopoly  for  one's  own  language  is  certainly 
not  serving  the  progress  of  civilization  at  home. 

But  whoever  studies  German  besides  his  English  will 
find  there  also,  and  just  in  its  recent  movements,  how 
concerted  effort  can  really  improve  and  develop  a 
language  without  the  arbitrary  methods  of  a  Simplifica- 
tion Board.  It  is  true  that  German  spelling  also  has  been 
reformed  in  recent  years  and  that  some  changes  have 
been  introduced  in  the  schools.  I  do  not  want  to  praise 
and  I  cannot  even  excuse  every  one  of  those  German 
spelling  reforms;  some  of  them  seem  arbitrary  and  poor. 
But  the  essential  purpose  was  to  make  an  end  of  the  con- 
fusing doubleness  in  the  spelling  of  many  words.  Where- 
ever,  in  the  natural  growth  of  writing,  a  variety  of  written 
forms  develops  together,  the  decision  of  competent  men 


THE  WORLD  LANGUAGE  219 

can  really  help  to  unify  public  customs.  As  far  as  the 
American  Board  has  aimed  toward  this  goal,  it  has  done 
what  the  Germans  did  with  much  success,  and  every 
reasonable  man  ought  to  support  its  efforts.  If  it  decides 
for  meter  instead  of  metre  and  for  labor  instead  of 
labour,  it  crystallizes  the  real  tendencies ;  and  certainly  no 
word  of  mine  is  directed  against  such  useful  endeavors. 
But  that  is  not  the  essential  work  of  the  Board.  So  far 
there  has  never  been  in  the  writing  of  our  time  an  un- 
certain hovering  between  thru  and  through,  between  blest 
and  blessed,  etc.  The  Board,  instead  of  favoring  one  of 
two  familiar  ways,  has  closed  the  only  known  way  and 
laid  out  a  new  one  which  seemed  to  it  shorter. 

More  than  all,  what  Germany  has  achieved  with  still 
more  success  and  yet  almost  without  the  notice  of  the 
foreign  world,  is  the  purification  of  its  whole  style  and 
expression.  In  the  first  place,  the  clumsy  words  of  Greek, 
Latin,  and  French  origin  are  more  and  more  being 
abolished;  private  societies  have  turned  public  opinion 
earnestly  to  this  task,  and  success  is  even  to-day  beyond 
expectation.  Further,  sentences  have  become  more  lucid 
and  less  involved,  the  whole  diction  has  become  clearer, 
and  the  choice  of  words  has  become  more  characteristic. 
It  can  be  said  that  the  German  of  the  best  authors  of 
to-day  is  absolutely  different  from  the  German  of  twenty 
years  ago;  a  new  style  has  grown  up  through  the  per- 
sistent efforts  of  the  nation,  without  any  artificial  prescrip- 
tion. Natural  growth,  and  not  mechanical  construction, 
remains  the  life-condition  for  every  element  in  languages. 


220  AMERICAN  PROBLEMS 

But  if  the  Americans  begin  to  allow  a  Board  to  prescribe 
perfectly  unusual  methods  of  spelling  for  mere  simplicity's 
sake,  then  there  is  no  reason  why  a  rival  Board  should  not 
start  to  forbid  certain  cumbersome  words  and  phrases, 
and  prescribe  a  simplified  grammar.  Yes,  as  soon  as, 
in  spite  of  the  Constitution,  such  matters  can  no  longer 
be  discussed,  but  must  be  discust,  we  cannot  be  sure  that 
the  rival  boards  may  not  presently  form  a  word  trust 
which  will  simply  dictate  which  phrase-mills  are  to  be 
allowed  to  run  and  which  are  to  be  closed:  all  for  the 
higher  profit  of  the  world  language  which  will  ever  re- 
main a  phantasm,  even  if  you  are  obedient  and  write  it 
simplified,  with  an  F. 


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